Couple who abandoned babies twice over looks gets suspended sentences

A couple who abandoned their babies twice because the infants did not resemble them have received suspended prison sentences.

According to legal sources Sunday, Judge Kim Bo-hyeon of Uijeongbu District Court's Criminal Division 9 sentenced a woman in her 40s, identified as A, to 18 months in prison suspended, and a man in his 50s, identified as B, to one year in prison suspended, both on charges of violating the Child Welfare Act.

The crimes came to light more than a decade later through a government-wide investigation into children registered as temporary newborns whose births had gone unreported. Both abandoned children were found to be alive and growing up.

A and B were living together in Pocheon, Gyeonggi Province in 2005 when A gave birth. The newborn's skin color and appearance differed from B's, leading him to conclude the child was not his. Within a month of the birth, the couple abandoned the baby at the front gate of a children's home in northern Gyeonggi Province.

The two separated but rekindled their relationship in 2008. At the time, A was pregnant with a child fathered by a foreign national, though B believed the child was his. The couple registered their marriage, had the baby and raised the child together for about a year.

As the child grew, the infant's appearance and skin color came to resemble those of a foreign national. To avoid B's questioning, A left the home in March 2009, leaving the child with her parents. B, now convinced he was not the biological father, abandoned the second child at the same children's home where the first had been left.

The court said A bore significant blame for deceiving her husband into believing the child was his, raising the baby together and then abandoning her parental duty by leaving without notice. However, it said it took into account that both children had been confirmed alive and that the defendants had confessed and shown remorse.