KUALA LUMPUR, July 28 — A haunted house guide at a theme park was sentenced to three years' imprisonment by the Sessions Court today after pleading guilty to sexually assaulting a teenage customer in February.
Judge Datin Surita Budin imposed the sentence on Bangladeshi national Md Israful Alam, 30, and ordered him to serve the jail term from the date of his arrest on February 7. He was also ordered to undergo counselling during his imprisonment.
The accused was charged with committing the offence against a 13-year-old girl at a theme park haunted house in a shopping mall in the capital, at 12.30pm on February 7.
He was charged under Section 14(a) of the Sexual Offences Against Children Act 2017, which provides for a maximum prison sentence of 20 years and caning, upon conviction.
Based on the facts of the case, the victim informed her mother that Israful had committed the act while she was walking in line inside the haunted house on that day.
The victim's mother subsequently lodged a police report on the same day, and CCTV footage from the location showed the accused committing the offence while standing behind the victim.
Earlier, Deputy Public Prosecutor Nur Shakila Mohd Shariff urged the court to impose a sentence that would serve as a deterrent and send a clear message that any sexual offence against children would not be taken lightly, in the interest of public welfare.
"As a result of the accused's actions, the victim has suffered prolonged trauma and remains deeply affected by the incident. She is now fearful of foreign individuals.
"She used to be a cheerful child who frequently engaged in outdoor recreational activities with her family. However, due to the accused's actions at the haunted house, a place meant for leisure, she has become afraid to go out and is traumatised to engage in such activities," she said.
The accused's lawyer Kelvin Sidhu appealed for a lighter sentence on the grounds that his client has a wife and a seven-year-old child to support, and urged the court to consider his early guilty plea as a mitigating factor.
