Court releases written judgment on bowler's rape case decision

KUALA LUMPUR: National bowler Noor Afizal Azizan would not have got off with a bond for five years for having sex with a minor if he had been older or had used force, coercion or violence.

The Court of Appeal said this in its written judgment released Monday.

Court of Appeal president Justice Raus Sharif, who sat with Justices K.N. Segara and Azhar Ma'ah, wrote the grounds of judgment.

He added that Noor Afizal had not "tricked the girl into submitting to him".

Justice Raus said that if Noor Afizal had "not cooperated with the police and he had not shown any remorse to his act or there is no guarantee that he will not be committing the same offence in future, we would not have any hesitation, as we have done in many other cases of similar nature, to impose a lengthy custodial sentence."

There was public uproar on Aug 8 after the court allowed Noor Afizal's appeal against a High Court decision to sentence him to five years' jail for statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl.

In his oral decision, Justice Raus had agreed with Noor Afizal's counsel that public interest would not be served if the bowler received a custodial sentence when he had "a bright future."

In the Malacca Sessions Court, the judge had imposed a RM25,000 bond with good behaviour for five years on Noor Afizal, 21, after he pleaded guilty to raping the girl at a hotel in Ayer Keroh, Malacca on July 5, 2010.

However, the public prosecutor had appealed to the High Court on Sept 20 last year and obtained a five-year custodial sentence, the mandatory minimum for rape under the Penal Code.

Justice Raus said in his written judgment that any sentence to be imposed on cases like this must be based on the facts of each case, that it is "neither feasible nor desirable to attempt to lay down any fixed sentence that is meant to govern this types of cases."

"These observations made by this court should not be misconstrued as intending to have blanket application or applying to all cases involving young offenders charged with similar offence as the appellant here."

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