A man was sentenced to four months jail by the Magistrate's Court here today after he pleaded guilty to molesting a female student while he was taking care of his comatose wife at a hospital here.

Before handing down the sentence, Magistrate Ashraf Rezal Abdul Manan asked the accused, Lim Loon Cheng, 53, a painter, why he had held the victim's arms to which the accused replied in Mandarin, "She's very beautiful."

Lim allegedly gripped both arms of the 19-year-old girl and said, "I love you" with the intent to outrage her modesty in a ward, at the University Malaya Medical Centre (UMMC) in Brickfields here at 10.10pm, on June 10.

The magistrate ordered Lim to serve the sentence from the date of his arrest, on June 11.

According to the facts of the case, the accused who was taking care of his comatose wife at the ward asked the victim, who was taking care of her ailing grandmother in the front bed, to switch off the lights near the seating area of the accused.

When the victim closed the lights, the accused grabbed both the girl's arms before she forcefully pushed him off and ran out of the ward.

The accused's wife has since died leaving him with their 12-year-old child.

Deputy public prosecutor Muhammad Farith Muhd Faizal appeared for the prosecution while the accused was not represented.