KUCHING, June 26 -- The Sessions Court here has sentenced a 28-year-old man to a total of 30 years in prison and 18 strokes of the rotan for statutory rape.

Judge Iris Awen Jon convicted the man on his guilty plea to three charges under Section 376(1) of the Penal Code, which carries a maximum 20-year jail term and caning upon conviction.

The court sentenced him to 10 years behind bars and six strokes of the cane for each charge, with the sentences to run consecutively.

He committed the offences in a white single-cab pickup truck at a plantation in Serian on three separate occasions in February, April, and May.

According to the facts of the case, the mother of the 15-year-old victim was informed by her sister that she had seen the gir...