An elderly driver in his 80s who denied hitting an elementary school student with his car in a school zone has received a suspended prison sentence after being found guilty, supported by dashcam footage of the accident.

The 1st Criminal Division of the Gwangju High Court's Jeonju branch (Presiding Judge Jung Moon-kyung) announced today (August 24) that it has dismissed both the prosecution's and the defendant's appeals, upholding the lower court's sentence of 10 months in prison suspended for two years, for 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).

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 showing a corrected visual acuity of "0.3 for the right eye and 0.03 for the left eye" and vehemently denied the crime, claiming, "I did not know I hit child B with my car."

However, there was one fact that A had overlooked.

Because his vehicle's dashcam had a feature that automatically saved footage when an impact was detected, the footage of the accident remained even after the incident.

At the time, after hitting B, A came to a sudden stop, and his wife, who was in the car, appeared to have realized the accident as she rolled down the window and asked, "Child, are you hurt?"

The first-instance court handed down a guilty verdict based on this dashcam footage and an accident investigation report by the Korea Road Traffic Authority, but A appealed, expressing dissatisfaction with the ruling.

The appellate court pointed out, "Looking at the dashcam footage, the part of the vehicle that struck the victim was the front-left bumper area where the driver's seat is located," adding, "Given that the impact was strong enough to send the pedestrian bouncing away, the driver would have been able to sufficiently perceive the collision through senses other than sight, such as vehicle vibration or impact sounds."

It further stated, "The victim was 11 years old at the time and suffered a considerable impact from the accident, so the defendant should have taken measures such as taking the victim to the hospital or contacting their parents," and explained the grounds for dismissing the appeal, concluding, "Even upon re-examination, it is difficult to see that the lower court's judgment was erroneous or that the sentence exceeded the reasonable bounds of discretion."