A middle school athletics coach who filmed a student naked and distributed the footage in a group chat with students was handed over to prosecutors.
The North Chungcheong Provincial Police Agency said on the 8th it referred a middle school athletics coach, A, in his 30s, without detention on charges of violating the Child Welfare Act and the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment of Sexual Crimes.
A is accused of filming at home in Nov.–Dec. last year a student with an intellectual disability, B, whom A coached, naked with a mobile phone and sharing it in a social media (SNS) group chat that included athletics team students.
According to police, A shared B's nude photos and videos multiple times and traded mocking messages with students. A said in a police interview it "was a prank."
The case surfaced on Feb. when a parent of a student who was in the group chat found the video and alerted the school. However, the school reportedly did not report it to police for two weeks. In the end, only after North Chungcheong Provincial Council member Park Jin-hee raised the issue on SNS did police launch a formal investigation.
The school said that after becoming aware of the incident it intended to report it to police, but could not do so immediately because the victim's parent did not want the case publicized. It said it did not try to handle the matter internally.
A resigned from the school when the allegations emerged.