Court upholds 3.5-year sentence for mother who left day-old son outside in winter

The Daegu High Court on October 8 dismissed appeals by both prosecutors and the defendant and upheld a prison sentence of three years and six months for a mother charged with child abuse murder after leaving her day-old son outdoors, where he died, Yonhap, Kukmin Ilbo and Newsis reported. The ruling was issued by Criminal Division 1-2, presided over by Judge Wang Hae-jin (왕해진). [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]

The first-instance court had also ordered the woman to complete 40 hours of a child abuse treatment programme and barred her from working at child-related institutions for five years. Newsis reported that the first-instance court called the offence very grave because it was committed against her own child, who was owed protection. [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]

According to Yonhap, the appeals court said the baby was abandoned by his mother a day after birth and cried and shivered through the night in temperatures of minus 3 degrees Celsius before dying, and that citizens across the country who learned of the case had submitted petitions asking for severe punishment. The court added that, after reviewing the record, the lower court appeared to have carefully weighed all favourable and unfavourable sentencing factors, and it rejected both sides' claims that the sentence was inappropriate. [ 1 , 2 ]

Yonhap reported that the woman, aged 30, gave birth to a boy on January 9 in the delivery room of an obstetrics clinic in Nam-gu, Ulsan, and the next day left him in a rubber basin in a vegetable garden behind a house on Saneop-ro (산업로) in Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province. Kukmin Ilbo, which described her as in her 30s, also placed the scene in a vegetable garden behind a house. Newsis gave a different location, reporting that she left the infant on a rubber basin in front of a warehouse behind a factory in Gyeongju at around 1:55 pm on January 10, and that he died of hypothermia. [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]

Newsis identified the defendant as a Chinese national and reported that investigators found she had been under severe stress because of financial difficulties and because she could not reach the child's father, who had left for China in May last year and lost contact. It reported that she decided to abandon the baby because she did not feel able to raise him, and left him outdoors knowing that a newborn could die in the sub-zero weather. [ 3 ]

The case came to light when a resident found the baby and reported it. Yonhap gave the date as February 21, while Kukmin Ilbo said it was about a month after the crime. [ 1 , 2 ]