Fadley Faisal
The High Court dismissed a thief’s appeal against sentence on seeing no reason to accommodate for his family’s hardships and his plans to marry his girlfriend.
With theft convictions in 2006, 2009 and 2010, Rosmali bin Haji Omar received a one-year and 10 months jail sentence in November 2022 for theft charges. Prosecutor Syazwani binti Jumat, on responding to the appeal, revealed that Rosmali had stolen mobile phones left unattended by their owners on tables of two food stalls and two shops in Rimba, Kumbang Pasang and Kiulap in February and August 2021.
Rosmali cited his elderly mother and his schooling children who all needed his support in contesting the sentence. Rosmali, 54, who appeared to the court to be estranged from his wife, also mentioned his plans to marry his girlfriend this year.
Chief Justice Dato Seri Paduka Steven Chong saw no merit in Rosmali’s applications and dismissed the application on grounds that he had been convicted after a trial, holding previous records in theft and the fact that he had committed the latest offences on four occasions in a span of seven months.
“The sentence… is neither excessive nor wrong in principle,” the Chief Justice added.
The Chief Justice, in conclusion, said that despite the fact that “a jail sentence would often cause hardship to the family, but it cannot be one of the factors which can affect what would otherwise be the right sentence, and disrupting the applicant’s marriage plan occasioned by his custodial sentence is also no basis to interfere with the sentence”.
