Police are reviewing whether they can apply an indecent assault charge to a teenage high school student who put his bodily fluid into a tumbler used by a female teacher.
According to the Seogwipo Police Station on the 14th, police are conducting a legal review of whether a sex crime charge can be applied to the student, identified as A, who has been booked on suspicion of trespassing on a structure and property damage.
A is accused of sneaking into a classroom at an elementary school in Seogwipo late in the afternoon on April 27 and fleeing after putting bodily fluid into a tumbler belonging to a female teacher, identified as B.
After learning of the incident, B received counseling from a psychiatrist and was told it was a dangerous crime with a very high rate of recurrence. She then submitted a request to the Seogwipo Police Station urging investigators to pursue the case thoroughly. About a month later, on June 5, A again entered the classroom where B serves as homeroom teacher, urinated on the teacher's chair and fled, according to the investigation.
B said she is suffering severe anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder because she believes the two incidents may have been planned and directed specifically at her.
Police had been reluctant to apply a sex crime charge to A despite the teacher's complaints of severe psychological trauma. Applying charges such as indecent assault requires assault or intimidation involving direct physical contact, and the existing legal standard, under which cases like this one are difficult to treat as direct physical contact, had been an obstacle.
Recently, however, the Supreme Court ruled that indecent assault applies to a man who put his bodily fluid into a drink cup a female employee was using at a cafe, and sent the case back to the lower court.
The Supreme Court's third division, with Justice Lee Heung-koo as the presiding judge, held a sentencing hearing on the indecent assault and property damage case dated July 9, overturned the not-guilty verdicts from the first and second trials, and remanded the case with a ruling that indecent assault had been established. In that case, a customer at a cafe in Seoul secretly mixed semen he had prepared in advance into a drink and had the owner consume it.
The court found that while the act might appear on its face to be directed at the victim's property, it was in substance an exercise of physical force against the victim's body. The core of the ruling was that semen carries strong sexual meaning and that the act was carried out against the victim's will, which can constitute assault under the indecent assault statute. It was the first time such an act was recognized as indecent assault.
Police plan to complete their legal review based on the Supreme Court precedent, make a final decision on whether to apply the indecent assault charge, and refer the case to prosecutors.
