Ex-police officer sentenced to jail for raping Vietnamese woman

Gettyimagesbank

By Lee Hyo-jin

A restaurant owner, who had previously served 20 years as a police officer in Busan, has been sentenced to jail for raping a Vietnamese woman.

Changwon District Court sentenced the 54-year-old man to four years in prison, Thursday, for raping the 20-year-old victim. The court also ordered him to undergo 40 hours of treatment for sex offenders and restricted him from getting jobs at child-related facilities for seven years.

The man was convicted of raping the college student from Vietnam on her first day at work as a part-time worker at the restaurant in Changwon, South Gyeongsang Province. The crime took place at around 11:20 p.m., Aug. 17, 2020.

He committed the crime while drinking with her in the restaurant after working hours. The victim's friends reported the rape to police on the same night it happened.

During the police investigation and trials, the accused admitted to having sex with the victim, but insisted that it was consensual, claiming that no violence was involved.

However, the judge did not accept his claim as her testimony was “detailed and consistent.” The court also viewed that the man attempted to destroy evidence by washing the victim's clothes.

Although the man stated that he tried to “wash off vomit and blood from her clothes,” the court saw it as an attempt to get rid of evidence, considering his 20 years of experience as a police officer.

“He committed the crime against the victim who was in an unfamiliar environment due to differences in language and culture, and it seems that it will take a considerable amount of time for her to recover from shock and damage,” said the court in its ruling.