A woman who abandoned her three-month-old son in a stranger's yard stood trial 14 years later. The court sentenced her to two years in prison.
Judge Kim Soo-hyun of the Gwangju District Court on the 25th sentenced a 49-year-old woman, identified only as A, to two years in prison on charges of violating the Child Welfare Act through child abandonment and neglect.
The crime dates back to March 2011. A gave birth to a son in December 2010 with a man she was living with, identified as B, but could not register the birth because she already had a legal spouse and two children. Concluding that she could not raise the child alone without B's financial support, A decided together with B to abandon the infant.
On the afternoon of March 9 that year, the two went to a house in Incheon. While B kept watch outside the gate, A entered the yard, placed the three-month-old on the ground and left.
The court said the offense was "extremely serious in light of the circumstances and nature of the crime, in which she abandoned her own infant child." It also noted that she deliberately failed to appear even though she knew the trial was under way, forcing the proceedings to go ahead through service by public notice. The court did take into account that the child appears to have been adopted within South Korea and that A had no prior criminal record.
