KUALA LUMPUR: A father, 35, who hit his two teenage children with the stringed area of a badminton racquet and forced them to waddle was today sentenced to eight months' jail.
Sessions Court judge Datin Fadzlin Suraya Mohd Suah meted out the sentence on the unemployed father, who had pleaded guilty to all four counts of ill treatment of his children.
The judge ordered him to serve the sentence concurrently from the date of his arrest on June 1.
The charges read that he had deliberately ill treated his biological children, which could have caused physical or emotional injuries.
He committed the offences at a unit at the People's Housing Project in Kepong Utara at 9pm from May 30 to June 1.
Before sentencing, the father of five pleaded to the court to lighten his sentence and he had regretted his mistakes.
He said he suffered from chronic diseases and took care of three other young children.
"I want to be given a second chance to raise them. I ask the court for a lenient sentence."
This prompted the judge to question why he had acted so on his children.
The father said he had observed that the two were "weird" compared with the other siblings.
Judge: Why did you hit them? You hit them to teach them a lesson?
Father: Yes, but I did not think the situation would turn out to be this bad.
Deputy public prosecutor Nidzuwan Abd Latip urged the court to impose an appropriate sentence as a lesson to the father and as deterrent to the public.
The facts of the case read that the father had ill treated his son, 13, by hitting his legs with the stringed area of a badminton racquet and slapped his face and beat his body between 9pm and 12 midnight on May 30.
The next day, he had beaten his daughter, 15, on her face with the stringed area of the badminton racquet between 3pm and 5pm.
His acts had caused injuries on the siblings, said a preliminary medical report.
He had asked them to waddle for long periods of time, which could have led to emotional and physical injuries, between 1pm and 5pm on June 1.