Beh Soon Hock (38) went on a four-day rampage of sex attacks in hotels in Kuala Lumpur last June. In addition to attacking the Irish woman, he also sodomised a 10-year-old Kuwaiti boy and raped a 24year-old South Korean woman.

The Irish woman, who worked as a company manager with an IT firm in Penang, was staying at the Federal Hotel in Jalan Bukit Bintang when Beh attacked her on 24 June last. He assaulted her as she was entering her third-floor room. Over a four-hour period, he raped and sodomised her and stole over $2,500 in cash, a mobile phone, earrings, a wallet and credit cards.

Beh pleaded guilty at his initial trial last July to five charges, including two for sodomy and one for rape.

In addition to admitting that he assaulted the Irish woman, he also pleaded guilty to raping the South Korean woman in her room at the Tour View Hotel in Jalan Alor, Kuala Lumpur, on 22 June. He gained entry to the woman's room by pretending to be a room-service attendant.

He also admitted that he sodomised the 10-year-old Kuwaiti boy at the washroom on the ground floor of the Melia Hotel in Jalan Imbi on 26 June.

The boy had got off a tour bus to use the toilet in the hotel lobby when Beh abused him.

At his initial trial for rape and sodomy last July, Beh told the court that he did not mind a prison sentence as long as he would not be whipped. He appealed the decision of the sentencing judge. Since losing that appeal last month, he will now be publicly whipped two dozen times.

High Court judge Datuk Abdull Hamid Embong, who presided over the appeal, said Hock deserved to be caned for his crimes. "You are a sex offender who preyed on foreign tourists and traumatised them. Tourists require the protection of the law, too. If our streets are not safe, Malaysia's reputation as a safe tourist destination will be marred, " he told Hock.

Beh was released from prison for a separate offence just one month before he carried out the sex attacks last June. He had served a year's jail sentence and a whipping for armed robbery.