A 36-year-old unit trust agent has been sentenced to 48 years in jail with 24 strokes of the rotan for committing sexual crimes on his 15-year-old daughter.

The sentence was passed by the Special Court for Sexual Crimes against Children in Putrajaya today.

He pleaded guilty to 623 charges including sodomising, raping, and sexually abusing the victim for two years.

Sessions Court judge Yong Zarida Sazali also ordered the father to pay RM10,000 in compensation to the victim. Failing to do so would result in him being sentenced to an additional 12 months’ jail.

Yong sentenced him to 28 years’ jail for incest, physically assaulting the victim without intercourse, and sexually abusing the child, and a further 20 years’ jail for sodomising the victim. The sentences are to run concurrently, starting from the date of arrest on July 27 this year.

It was reported last month that the court took two days to read out all the charges against the man.

The man was also ordered to undergo counselling, and upon release, be monitored by police for a duration of three years.

The father was not represented in court, while deputy public prosecutors Nordalina Ali and Aimi Syazwani Sarmin turned out for the prosecution.

The man, a divorcé, was said to have sodomised his own daughter in their Selangor apartment three times daily between Jan and July, except for three days in that period. However, the victim's ordeal was said to have started when she was 13.

Women, Family and Community Development Minister Rohani Karim, who was present in court, said that the ministry have monitored the case closely from the beginning, adding that the victim and her mother are being given intervention treatment to cope with trauma.

Rohani also said that children should be given sexual education to help them “identify and prevent” cases of sexual assault, and that society has a role to play in reporting such incidents. 

“The ministry urges society, neighbours, parents and teachers to curb such sexual crimes on children,” the minister said.