SIBU: The High Court here today (April 25) dismissed two appeals filed by a youth and affirmed the sentences imposed on him by the lower court to serve a total of 24 years’ imprisonment and 12 strokes of whipping for committing armed gang robbery and voluntarily causing grievous hurt.
The appellant, Donald Unsin, 23, was earlier sentenced to 12 years’ jail and six strokes of whipping by the Sarikei Sessions Court for jointly with co- accused, Man Chukan committed gang robbery on Wee Tieng Beng and Gita Maja, namely two mobile phones, and armed with a machete at an unnumbered house in Jalan Pasi Sarikei on Jan 29 last year at about 9 pm.
Another sentence of 12 years’ imprisonment and six strokes of whipping was imposed on him with co-accused, Matius Usin to a joint charge of voluntarily caused grievous hurt to an Indonesian, Hamdani Abdul Raham with a piece of rotten wood, which is likely to cause death.
The incident occurred at an oil palm plantation in Tanah Putih, Sarikei on Jan 2, 2020 at about 1 pm.
The Sessions Court had also ordered the sentences of Donald to run consecutively.
Aggrieved by the sentences, Donald filed the appeal to the High Court.
In his submission, the prosecution/respondent handled by Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Mark Kenneth Netto said that before imposing the sentences against the appellant, the Sessions Court considered several main sentencing principles.
In doing so, he stressed that paramount consideration was given by the Sessions Court to the interest of the public.
“As regards to the adequacy of the sentence for each individual charge, the sentence imposed was not manifestly excessive. The individual sentence imposed was in accordance with the law.
“The sentence for the armed gang robbery offence was in line with the trend of sentencing. The sentence for voluntarily causing grievous hurt by means of a dangerous weapon was in the high range in the sentencing trend. However, it was not manifestly excessive in light of the circumstances of the case.
“Hence, the appellant appeal against the sentences ought to be dismissed. However, if the Court finds that the cumulative imprisonment sentence for both offences had breached the “totality principle” in that the aggregate sentence is substantially above the normal level of sentence for the most serious of the individual offence(s) committed by the appellant, then the Court is free to exercise its revisionary powers to make the necessary corrections,” Netto further stated.
In dismissing the appeal, High Court Judge, Wong Siong Tung ruled that after going through the record of appeal and submissions by both the appellant’s counsel and DPP, he found no grounds justifiable in law to interfere with the sentences imposed by the Sessions Court upon the appellant for the two offences he was charged and convicted.
