Abdul Malik Ishak J:

The New Straits Times dated 14 July 1999 carried a front page report and the photograph of the accused with the caption:

Grass cutter jailed 20 years for causing grievous hurt to school boy.

The Star too in its edition dated 14 July 1999 carried the report and the photograph of the accused with an eye catching caption, in its front page:

Monster jailed.

The popular Malay daily, Utusan Malaysia, in its front page report dated 14 July 1999 carried the photograph of the accused with the caption:

Bekas banduan sula murid di penjara 20 tahun.

(An ex-convict who impaled student jailed 20 years)

Public interests must have been visibly stirred by these eye catching phrases and the stories that unfolded thereto. The learned Sessions Court judge Madam Siti Mariah bte Hj. Ahmad in her wisdom imposed the maximum 20 years' imprisonment on the accused for an offence under s. 326 of the Penal Code. That section is worded thus:

Whoever, except in the case provided by section 335, voluntarily causes grievous hurt by means of any instrument for shooting, stabbing or cutting, or any instrument which, used as a weapon of offence, is likely to cause death, or by means of fire or any heated substance, or by means of any poison or any corrosive substance, or by means of any explosive substance, or by means of any substance which it is deleterious to the human body to inhale, to swallow, or to receive into the blood, or by means of any animal, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to twenty years, and shall also be liable to fine or to whipping.

In exercising my revisionary powers under ss. 323(i) of the Criminal Procedure Code (FMS Cap 6) ("CPC"), I called for the record of proceedings for the purpose of satisfying myself as to the correctness, legality or propriety of any finding, sentence or order recorded or passed, and as to the regularity of any proceedings of the Sessions Court in question. In Re Soo Leot [1955], Buhagiar J dutifully followed the principles laid down by Jenkins CJ in Emperor v. Lachiram ILR 28 Bom. 533, and his Lordship succinctly said that:

... the powers of the High Court in revision are exercisable at the discretion of the court and that discretion is untrammelled and free, so as to be fairly exercised according to the exigencies of each case.

Was the revision necessary? This was a case where the accused, a grass cutter and an ex-convict, who was just released from prison on 16 February 1999 after serving a 20 year jail sentence for raping a minor who subsequently died in 1985 and for that he was charged under s. 304 of the Penal Code before the High Court in Muar on 16 October 1985, had the audacity to commit a heinous crime on 1 June 1999 by violently shoving a 60 cm stick up the anus of his victim, a young innocent schoolboy. The reporters had a field day and without them I would not know of the seriousness of the offence and there would not be a need to revise this case.

The innocent schoolboy, aged 12, survived the ordeal. Clearly the accused is a devil with a human mask. Without a doubt, the accused had committed a heinous and inhuman offence causing inexplicable pain and trauma to that schoolboy. The medical report makes for an interesting reading. It took the doctors 5275 hours to surgically remove the stick from the boy's anus. Society has to be protected from monsters like the accused. This court has a duty, nay an onerous one, to revise the order of the Sessions Court to suit the facts of the case. The offence was committed on 1 June 1999 at about 5pm to 6pm along Jalan Tun Ibrahim, Bandar Tenggara, Kota Tinggi and it was the swift action of the police that resulted in the arrest of the accused on the same day in his house in Bandar Tenggara. On that fateful day, the accused had stopped that schoolboy who was riding his bicycle alone on the pretext of asking for help. At that time, the accused was carrying a sack of durians and he had asked the s