Seoul High Court on Wednesday gave 2 1/2 years in prison to a man who video-recorded and touched a woman asleep at a coffee shop.
The accused 28-year-old man, surnamed Kim, had on multiple occasions secretly taken videos of women in public spaces, including inside toilets.
He was caught and handed over to authorities in August 2015 while videotaping and touching the toes of a woman who had fallen deeply asleep at a coffee shop in Incheon.
(123RF)
While Kim admitted to all other charges regarding the use of the camera on random women, he protested accusations of an indecent act by force. He claimed toes had no relevance to sexual humiliation and that he had only touched them for a split second.
He had appealed for a retrial, but the appeals court dismissed his plea and upheld the original court’s decision, saying, “A sexually indecent act, at its core, cannot be separately regarded per body part. Kim’s actions towards a woman he had no acquaintance with was enough to bring disturbance to an average person.”
The court said Kim’s confession during the police investigation that he “intentionally went in the cafe to touch the victim after seeing no one else was around” was also proof of his guilt.
By Lim Jeong-yeo (
kaylalim@heraldcorp.com)
