A man in his 60s who left his wife bleeding and collapsed at home to go play sports has received a suspended sentence again in his appellate trial.
The Incheon District Court sentenced 65-year-old A, who was indicted without detention on charges of abandonment resulting in injury, to 1 year and 6 months in prison with 2 years of probation, upholding the original verdict during the sentencing hearing for his appeal.
The appellate court determined that it was difficult to establish a causal relationship proving that A's act of abandonment directly led to his wife falling into an unresponsiveness state.
The appellate court stated, "Even if the emergency report had been made about 50 minutes earlier, considering it took more than two hours until the victim underwent emergency decompressive craniectomy, the surgery start time would have been advanced by only that much," adding, "There is no probability that calling 119 immediately upon discovery would have prevented the state of unresponsiveness."
In March of last year during the sentencing trial, prosecutors sought a 7-year prison term for A, but the appellate court dismissed the prosecution's appeal, ruling that the original sentencing was appropriate.
A was indicted on charges of leaving his 50s wife, B, unattended and injured after she collapsed bleeding at their home in Ganghwa-gun, Incheon, in 2023.
Stopping by the house to change clothes to go play tennis, A saw his collapsed wife, took a photo of her, sent it to his stepdaughter, and immediately went out.
At the time, B had collapsed bleeding on the bathroom floor due to a traumatic subdural hemorrhage—a type of cerebral hemorrhage. She was taken to the hospital by emergency responders following her daughter's report, but fell into a brain-dead state.
During police investigations, A reportedly stated, "She had been reported for domestic violence before," and "I just left her because I didn't want to get tangled up with my wife over things like that."
A had previously been booked by police on three occasions for domestic violence incidents, but received "no-right-to-prosecute" dispositions because the victim expressed her desire not to see him punished.
Reported by Jung Da-eun | Video by Kim Min-ji | Graphics by Yang Hye-min | Produced by SBS Digital News
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