The Incheon District Court appellate panel on the 25th upheld an eight-month prison term, suspended for two years, for an English kindergarten instructor convicted of abusing four children. The court rejected the defense claim that the acts were legitimate discipline.
According to the Kyunghyang Shinmun, Criminal Appeals Panel 2-3 of the Incheon District Court (presiding judge Shin Sun-young) on the 25th sentenced a 50-year-old English kindergarten instructor, identified as A, to eight months in prison, suspended for two years, for violating the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment of Child Abuse Crimes. The sentence is the same as in the first trial. This paper does not print the defendant’s name.
광고 문의 · 300×250According to the facts of the indictment, in May 2023 A physically and emotionally abused four children at an English academy in Yeonsu District, Incheon. One of them was reportedly three years old at the time. The instructor is said to have slapped the children’s foreheads with an open palm, pulled their ears and made them stand in a hallway for more than 30 minutes because they were not eating properly.
What the appeals court weighed
A appealed, arguing that some children’s testimony was not credible and that the conduct was legitimate discipline. The Kyunghyang Shinmun reported that the appellate panel rejected both arguments. It found no legal error in the lower court’s decision to credit the children’s accounts and held that the conduct could impair normal development or harm mental health.
The first trial had acquitted A on some emotional-abuse counts, such as pulling back a non-eating child’s chair and grabbing and shaking a child’s body. The appeals court upheld that acquittal, saying prosecutors had not proven beyond reasonable doubt that those acts amounted to emotional abuse harming a child’s mental health or development.
The sentence and what remains
The court said it found no circumstances warranting a change and that the original sentence fell within a reasonable range of judicial discretion. Because the term is suspended, A avoids serving it if no new offense is committed during the two-year period. Whether A will appeal to the Supreme Court was not known within what this paper could confirm.
The case again raises the question of where discipline ends when physical contact is justified as guidance on eating habits for toddlers. The ruling shows that force used on a child can be treated as abuse even when the stated aim is discipline. Parents and educational institutions alike have reason to review how young children are guided and supervised.
