A three-member Court of Appeal bench chaired by Abdul Karim Abdul Jalil said there was no merit in the appeal by the contractor.

“The High Court judge did not err in finding the appellant guilty,” said Karim, who sat with Vazeer Alam Mydin Meera and M Gunalan.

The bench later issued a warrant of committal for the man to be taken to the Pengkalan Chepa prison as today’s proceeding is final.

It also dismissed a cross-appeal by the prosecution to enhance the jail term.

A High Court judge in Kota Bharu had last year sentenced the contractor, now 55, to 18 years’ jail and ordered that he be whipped 10 times.

The offence under the Penal Code carries a jail term of up to 30 years and whipping.

Deputy public prosecutor Wong Poi Yoke had earlier submitted that a jail term of 25 years would be appropriate.

The contractor committed the offence on June 9, 2014, on the girl, then 15 years and seven-months old, at a house in the Kota Bharu district.

The bench dismissed the prosecution’s appeal on a second similar charge where the man was alleged to have committed the offence on the girl in the month of June in 2016 at a house in the Bachok district.

The sessions court, in 2019, had acquitted the man on both charges.

According to the facts of the case, the contractor had taken the victim’s mother, who had three children from a previous marriage, as his second wife.

The girl initially told her mother what happened but no report was lodged as the contractor denied any such act had taken place.

In 2017, while visiting the home of her biological father in Kuala Lumpur, she narrated the incidents to her cousin.

Her father then took the girl to lodge a police report, triggering an investigation.

Medical evidence revealed the girl had been sexually assaulted.

Defence counsel Shukri Mohamed submitted that the conviction was unsafe as there was a three-year delay in making a report.