Daycare center head's son gets 10-year jail term for sexually abusing girls

By Bahk Eun-ji

The nation's top court has upheld lower court decisions that gave a 10-year jail sentence to a male teacher at a daycare center for sexually abusing four- to five-year-old girls.

Korea Times file

The Supreme Court announced Friday that it had confirmed the jail sentence for the 32-year-old teacher, who was the son of the center's head.

He sexually abused a five-year-old and a four-year-old girl between December 2019 and January 2020 in a classroom of the daycare center, taking advantage of the fact that the young children were unable to resist what he told them to do, according to the court.

The man denied the abuse, claiming he had just hugged the children. But the courts did not accept the claim based on CCTV footage and the victims' testimony.

A local court said he committed the crime despite his role as a daycare center teacher who should have been protecting them. It also banned him from getting a job at children-related facilities for 10 years after finishing his jail term.

An appellate court and the top court all upheld the decision.

The man's mother, the head of the daycare center, was fined 30 million won for negligence of her duty of supervision because she did not take any action after learning of her son's crime, after checking the CCTV footage inside the center.