A home that should have been the safest place became the most dangerous one for three children. A court has sentenced a father to prison for giving alcohol to his underage children and subjecting them to sexual and physical abuse.
The Milyang branch of the Changwon District Court's Criminal Division 1, presided over by Chief Judge Han Yun-ok, on the 25th sentenced the father, a man in his 40s identified as A, to seven years in prison on charges including violating the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment of Sexual Crimes through indecent assault by a relative. The mother, identified as B, who was tried alongside him on charges of violating the Child Welfare Act through abandonment and neglect, received a six-month prison term suspended for two years.
A is accused of repeatedly subjecting three underage children to sexual and physical abuse at the family home in South Gyeongsang Province between April 2024 and October last year, including indecent assault of his daughter on multiple occasions. Investigators found that he fed one of the children, then an infant, baby formula mixed with soju and committed inappropriate acts.
He also punched a son with an intellectual disability and beat him with objects including a broom and a motorcycle helmet for disobeying him. B was indicted on charges of neglect for repeatedly keeping one of the children out of school without good reason between March and October 2024.
"The victims appear to have suffered severe mental and physical pain, exposed without protection to sexual violations and various forms of abuse within the home over a considerable period," the court said, adding that a stern punishment for A was unavoidable.
As for B, the court noted that she had committed neglect as a mother obliged to protect her children, but said it weighed factors including that neither defendant had prior convictions for similar crimes or any beyond fines. A has since filed an appeal challenging the first-instance ruling.
