A Mere Property Damage Charge for 'Body Fluid Terror' in Drink? Supreme Court Overturns Ruling, Recognizing 'Forcible Indecency' for the First Time

A man places an order at a cafe and, when a female employee, A, turns her back, slips something into the cup of a drink she had been consuming.

Noticing a strange taste after drinking it, employee A reported the case to the police, and an investigation confirmed that the man had put his own bodily fluids into the drink.

[Employee A / Victim of Body Fluid Terror: It was an incident I didn't want to think about, and emotionally, it has been extremely difficult.]

Although employee A felt extreme sexual humiliation, the charge initially applied to the man was merely "property damage" for ruining the beverage cup.

Later, after the victim's stance was accepted, the prosecution indicted the suspect with the additional charge of "forcible indecency."

However, the district court and appellate court both handed down "not guilty" verdicts regarding the forcible indecency charge.

They ruled that for forcible indecency to be established, there must be assault or intimidation accompanied by direct physical contact, which they deemed was not the case here.

However, on July 9, the Supreme Court ruled that the incident constitutes a guilty case of "forcible indecency," overturning the lower court's ruling and sending the case back to the Seoul Western District Court.

The Supreme Court judged that the act of putting bodily fluids into the drink cup must be regarded as exerting physical force on the victim, given the intent to have the victim actually drink it.

It also explained that because bodily fluids carrying strong sexual connotations were introduced into the victim's body, causing mental and physical suffering, these factors taken together amount to forcible indecency.

This marks the first time that the so-called "body fluid terror"—putting bodily fluids into a beverage to be consumed—has been legally recognized as forcible indecency.

[Moon Yu-jin / Attorney in charge of the case: The biggest difference between the lower courts and the Supreme Court is whether the act was evaluated from the perpetrator's perspective or from the victim's perspective.]

Experts note this serves as an occasion to expand the criteria for forcible indecency beyond the traditional yardstick of "direct physical contact" to include indirect sexual violations mediated through objects.

(Reported by Jung Jun-ho | Video by Park Na-young | VJ: Jeong Han-wook | CG: Hwang Se-yeon | Produced by SBS Digital News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.