In November of last year, a male care worker in his 60s, surnamed A, kicked an 80-year-old dementia patient in the knee, knocked him down, twisted his arm, and slapped his face.

The elderly victim died the following day. In May, the first-instance court found A guilty of "injury resulting in death" and sentenced him to four years in prison, despite A denying the charges by claiming he was "only pretending to threaten him."

[Grandson of the Deceased Victim (June) : Even if he had apologized, it would be an infuriating situation, but to act like that (deny it), honestly, made us feel unbearable anger.]

A appealed the ruling, but the second-instance court reached the same conclusion last month.

However, neither the first nor second-instance courts issued employment restriction orders, which are routinely handed down together in trials for abuse crimes.

This is because injury resulting in death is not stipulated as a crime subject to employment restriction orders under the Senior Welfare Act.

While the Senior Welfare Act defines assault, abandonment, intimidation, and physical injury as senior abuse-related crimes, more serious offenses such as murder, injury resulting in death, and assault resulting in death are excluded.

This contrasts with laws related to child abuse, which include murder and assault resulting in death, and separately stipulate "child abuse resulting in death" to punish offenders more severely than general injury resulting in death.

Because of this loophole, even if A's conviction is finalized, he will only be stripped of his nursing caregiver license for a certain period and will face no restrictions on being rehired at care facilities.

When hiring employees, care facilities are required to check for histories of senior abuse crimes that restrict employment. However, injury resulting in death is not specified as a related crime on police criminal history check documents.

[Nam In-soon / National Assembly Health and Welfare Committee Member (Democratic Party) : (Under current law) Murder and fatal resulting offenses are not included [in senior abuse-related crimes], which is a massive loophole. As a result, we are currently not even in a position to figure out how many such offenders are working in care facilities.]

During the process of codifying senior abuse crimes into law at a National Assembly standing committee in 2019, these offenses were reportedly omitted, and no further discussions have taken place since.

[Exclusive] Beaten to Death, Yet "Reemployment at Care Facilities Possible" (October 6, 2026, 8 News)

Reported by Kim Min-jun | Produced by Choi Yoon-seo | Video by Cho Chang-hyun | Video Editing by Kim Ho-jin | Design by Jeon Yu-geun | Produced by SBS Digital News