By Jung Min-ho
The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that if a man stops his sexual advances toward a woman if she resists then he is not guilty of rape.
The top court returned the case of a man, surnamed Choi, who had been sentenced to one-and-a-half years in prison to the Seoul High Court.
Choi, 26, was found guilty of raping his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Park, in January 2013, by a district court and the sentence was upheld at an appellate court.
He met Park by chance in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, and they drank together all night long. Early in the morning, Choi said he would get a room at a motel for her and they entered the room together. Park later claimed he raped her.
“As soon as she exclaimed, ‘This is rape,’ he stopped what he was doing,” the court said. “As he stopped his sexual advances when she warned him, we doubt that the sex was really against her will.”
It is hard to believe her claim that Choi used force beyond her control; and the evidence presented by prosecutors was insufficient to prove that it was rape, the court said.
After the incident, Choi told Park that he would take her to her home, and she asked him to take her to a place where her boyfriend was waiting for her.
Choi was indicted on a separate allegation of raping a friend of Park, surnamed Lee, in his car in December 2012.
The district court found him guilty in both cases, sentencing him to two-and-a-half years in prison.
However, the appellate court lowered the sentence as it ruled that he was only guilty of raping Park. In its ruling that court said Lee and Choi exchanged more than 370 text messages consisting of everyday conversation after the incident, and so it seemed that the sex was consensual.