SIBU: A 29-year-old man was sentenced to 14 days’ imprisonment and fined RM4,000, in default, six months’ jail by the Magistrates’ Court here today for insulting the modesty of a woman.
Magistrate Oon Kork Chern handed down the sentence after Tohmas Renga Rabing, 29, from Mukah, pleaded guilty to the charge read which was explained to him through an interpreter.
The charge against him stated that he had insulted the modesty of the victim aged 19 by peeping into the bathroom when she was bathing at a shophouse along Ding Lik Kong Road on October 7 at about 7:10 pm.
He had thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 509 of the Penal Code which provides for an imprisonment of up to five years or fine or both if convicted.
According to facts of the case, on October 7 at about 7:10 pm, at a rented room in a shophouse along Ding Lik Kong Road, while the victim (complainant) was taking a bath, she noticed an individual recording her using a black smartphone.
The complainant screamed and called her father, who was in another room.
Her father then kicked open the door of the toilet adjacent to the bathroom and found a male tenant of the same building inside the toilet holding a phone.
Scared out of his wits, the man identified as the accused person told the complainant’s father that he would delete the recorded video before immediately fled the scene.
On October 10 at about 1:35 pm, following a police report, the complainant led a team of police to conduct a raid at a house along Wawasan Road.
Upon arrival, police arrested the accused and seized a mobile phone from him at the house in connection with the case.
A check of the accused’s mobile phone did not find any video recordings of the complainant stored in the device. The accused admitted to having deleted the recording after the incident.
An inspection of the accused’s mobile phone, however, found several pornographic videos stored in the device.
The case was prosecuted by DPP Keshava Rao Tharma Raja while the accused who has no legal representation, failed to pay the fine and will serve a further six months in prison.
