Mr Good Behavior Bond No More

There’s a new development on our Mr Good Behavior Bond. He’s going to jail.

“Females under 16 years old are deemed incapable of giving consent under the law,” Penang High Court judge Datuk Seri Zakaria Sam said.

Perhaps Penang Sessions Court Judge Sitarun Nisa Abdul Aziz didn’t see that the first time around. She considered the fact that the sexual act was consensual, and that he is a school dropout.

Some things just don’t make sense. Of course, Mr Bond can still appeal. It is his right.

However, a former national tenpin bowler is still a Mr Bond, unfortunately.

Good behaviour bond overturned
Tuesday, November 20, 2012 – 14:35
by Zalinah Noordin
Location: GEORGE TOWN

THE Penang High Court yesterday overturned a lower court’s decision and quashed a technician’s appeal against a conviction of raping a minor.

High Court judge Datuk Seri Zakaria Sam set aside the three-year good behaviour bond meted out by the Sessions Court on Chuah Guan Jiu, 22.

Chuah was sentenced instead to five-and-a-half years’ jail for raping the girl, then aged 12 years and 10 months, at his flat in Air Itam between 7am and 1pm on July 18 last year, and between 2.25pm and 2.45pm the next day.

The Sessions Court had initially bound Chuah over for three years on a RM25,000 good behaviour bond in August.

In passing the sentence, Zakaria labelled Chuah a “manipulator”, saying “young girls should be protected from manipulators like you”.

He said the accused had taken advantage of the girl’s naivety by taking her home instead of to school.

“Even assuming that she had agreed, you had the choice to reject her,” he told an expressionless Chuah, clad in a dark shirt and greyblue jeans.

The offence under Section 376 of the Penal Code carries a maximum 20-year imprisonment and whipping.

In dismissing Chuah’s appeal against the conviction, Zakaria noted that consent was irrelevant in the act of statutory rape.

He added that the law was clear as rape was committed with or without the consent of females under the age of 16.

“Females under 16 years old are deemed incapable of giving consent under the law,” he said.

Defence counsel P. Ashokumar then applied for a stay pending an appeal to the Court of Appeal arguing that there were still questions of law; the accused was asthmatic and had elderly parents to support.

Stay application dismissed

However Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Awang Armadajaya Awang Mahmud countered the questions of law were not novel.

He said Chuah could still receive medical attention in prison and that his parents were still healthy.

Zakaria then dismissed the stay application and the court stood down before Chuah was led away by police to serve his sentence.

On July 20, Chuah pleaded guilty to rape and Sessions Court Judge Sitarun Nisa Abdul Aziz, in her ruling, had considered his young age and him being a first offender.

Her decision followed a case in which national tenpin bowler Noor Afizal Azizan who pleaded guilty to raping a 13-year old girl, escaped custodial sentence and was bound over on a RM25,000 good behaviour bond for five years.