Teacher arrested for exam leak to his twin daughters

The gate of Sookmyung Girls'High School in Gangnam, southern Seoul, in this file photo. A teacher from the school was arrested late Tuesday for leaking exam questions to his twin daughters who are students there. / Yonhap

By Jung Hae-myoung

A local court issued an arrest warrant for a teacher from Sookmyung Girls' High School, Tuesday, for allegedly leaking exam questions to his twin daughters who attend the same school.

Sending the case to the prosecution, police also requested prosecutors to indict the twins as well, an unusual decision in an exam leak case in which only the teachers or parents are usually indicted.

Police officers said they initially considered not seeking an indictment for the girls if they confessed to the cheating, but they and their father denied the allegations despite the evidence.

“It is proper to issue an arrest warrant (for the father), considering the evidence submitted by the police, the relationship between the suspect and the accomplices (the girls), and the possibility of the suspects destroying evidence,” the court said.

After a two-month investigation, the Suseo Police Office found 18 pieces of evidence including answer sheets for an English exam saved on the twins' mobile phones, and math exam papers and handwritten answers on papers in their house.

One of the twins also wrote a wrong answer in the chemistry exam before correcting it later.

The father also worked a night shift alone in the school's office on April 21 and June 22 after the exam papers for midterms and finals were finalized, and locked in a safe there. He had earlier told police he did not know the combination for the safe, but later admitted that he found it in school data files.

One of the computers at his house was also thrown away after the allegation emerged in August.

However, the police could not obtain any video footage of the teacher stealing the exam papers.

Parents of other school students have called for the dismissal of the teacher and the immediate expulsion of the twins, saying other students preparing for the college exam could be affected by the case.