Man who raped 2 teens and smeared faeces in court unfit for caning, gets extra 12 months' jail

Dominic Low
The Straits Times
July 20, 2020

Due to a medical condition, a sex offender had his current jail term extended by 12 months on Monday (July 20) in lieu of being caned 24 strokes.

Isham Kayubi, 50, was convicted in February for raping two teenage girls after a trial in the High Court.

He was sentenced to 24 strokes of the cane and 32 years in jail, which he is currently serving. The court had backdated his sentence to Nov 3, 2017, when he was remanded.

The part-time food deliveryman had separately lured two 14-year-old girls to his Jurong West flat and sexually assaulted them, in a span of two weeks in late 2017.

He had threatened to summon his "gang members" if the two victims did not comply with his demands, and also recorded the sexual acts on his mobile phone.

It also emerged in court that he had been jailed for 4½ years in 2008 for sexual offences against four teenage girls.

Isham had created a disturbance in court twice during earlier proceedings.

He had exposed himself and urinated in the dock in August last year, when the case was originally slated for hearing.

He had also defecated in his clothes on Jan 14 this year - when the trial was rescheduled to start - and refused to change out of his soiled clothes.

He then proceeded to smear faeces on a glass panel of the dock while a witness was on the stand.

Court documents state that Isham was certified on May 2 this year by a medical officer to be unfit for caning due to age-related degenerative changes of his spine.

Urging the court to impose an additional jail term of 12 months in lieu of the caning, Deputy Public Prosecutor James Chew pointed out that there were numerous aggravating factors in this case.

These included the young age of the victims, Isham's recording of the sexual assaults on his mobile phone, and his failure to use a condom when committing the offences.

The DPP also noted that there were "clear parallels" between Isham's prior convictions and the present case, which demonstrated his dangerous tendency to target young girls and sexually exploit them and the need to ensure that he is sufficiently deterred.

"This court's imposition of caning was therefore a clever and forceful expression of the need for specific deterrence, and the lost effect of this message must be adequately compensated for," DPP Chew added.

Pleading for leniency, Isham told the court on Monday that he would have opted to be caned if he was suitable for the punishment.

With the additional sentence of 12 months' imprisonment in lieu of caning, Isham will now serve 33 years in jail for his offences.