(File Photo: School Zone)
An elderly driver in his 80s who denied hitting an elementary school student with his car in a school zone has been given a suspended prison sentence after being found guilty, aided by dashboard camera footage capturing the accident.
The 1st Criminal Division of the Gwangju High Court's Jeonju branch (Presiding Judge Jeong Moon-kyung) announced today (August 24) that it has dismissed the appeals filed by both the prosecution and the defendant, upholding the lower court's ruling that sentenced Defendant A (84), who was indicted on charges of violating the Act on the Aggravated Punishment, etc. of Specific Crimes (hit-and-run resulting in injury and injury in a child protection zone), to 10 months in prison suspended for two years.
Defendant A was indicted for hitting B (11), who was crossing a pedestrian crosswalk in front of an elementary school in Jeongeup, Jeollabuk-do, at 3:39 PM on May 29 of last year, with his car and fleeing the scene without taking rescue measures.
He submitted a medical certificate to investigative authorities stating that his corrected visual acuity was "0.3 for the right eye and 0.03 for the left eye," stubbornly denying the crime by claiming, "I didn't know I hit B with my car."
However, there was a fact that Defendant A overlooked.
Because his vehicle's dashboard camera had a function that automatically saved footage when it detected an impact, the accident video remained intact even after the offense.
At the time, after hitting B, Defendant A abruptly stopped the car, and his wife, who was inside the vehicle, seemed to recognize the accident as she rolled down the window and asked, "Child, are you hurt?"
The court of first instance found him guilty based on this dashcam footage and an accident investigation report from the Korea Road Traffic Authority, but Defendant A appealed, refusing to accept the verdict.
The appellate court pointed out, "Looking at the dashboard camera footage, the part of the vehicle that struck the victim was the front left bumper where the driver's seat is located," adding, "Given that the impact was strong enough to cause the pedestrian to bounce off, the collision would have been sufficiently perceptible through senses other than sight, such as vehicle vibration or impact sounds."
The court stated the grounds for dismissing the appeal, saying, "The victim was 11 years old at the time and suffered considerable shock from the accident, so the defendant should have taken measures such as taking the victim to the hospital or contacting their parents," and concluded, "Upon re-examination, it is difficult to see that the lower court's judgment was erroneous or that the sentence exceeded the reasonable scope of discretion."
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