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A police officer who turned more than 10 traffic accidents involving human injury into simple property damage accidents in order to ease his duties has been sentenced to a suspended prison sentence on appeal.
Yesterday (9th), the Jeju District Court's First Criminal Division (Chief Judge Oh Chang-hoon) rejected the appeal of Mr. A, who was sentenced to one year and six months in prison and three years of probation at the first trial on charges such as forgery of official records, and upheld the original sentence.
Inspector A, who worked in the Traffic Accident Investigation Team of the Seogwipo Police Station, is accused of creating electronic records of the Traffic Police Work Management System (TCS) by turning 1 personal injury accidents (1 seriously injured and 1 lightly injured) into material damage accidents over an 6-month period from May 3 to March of the following year.
If a person is injured in a traffic accident, the police must distinguish between the perpetrator and the victim, establish an incident record that includes identifying the cause of the accident, identifying passengers and passengers, and providing directions to the scene, and decide whether to send them back for approval.
On the other hand, if no person is injured in a traffic accident and only material damage occurs, the police can terminate it only after entering the computer information into the system and obtaining approval from the superior.
Inspector A used this point to close 2020 traffic accidents, three of which were uninsured suspects or violated the Special Law on the Handling of Traffic Accidents and required a formal investigation.
The Jeju Police Agency, which learned of this through its own inspection, re-investigated and sent the perpetrators of the traffic accident to the prosecutor's office, suspended Inspector A from office, and suspended him for one month.
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The court of first instance sentenced Inspector A, who later appeared in court, to one year and six months in prison and three years of probation, saying, "The crime in this case is a dereliction of duty as a police official and deserves strong moral reprehension."
Inspector A appealed on the grounds that "the sentence was heavy," but the Court of Appeal also rejected the appeal, saying that "in the case of the defendant's crime, it is a serious crime in which the statutory sentence is limited to imprisonment for not more than 1 years," and that "there is no change in the circumstances that can be reflected in the sentencing after the original trial judgment that sentenced the defendant to probation."
Recently, Inspector A reportedly abandoned his appeal to the Supreme Court and was dishonorably retired under Article 1 of the Police Officers Act, which stipulates that if he is sentenced to more than suspension, he will naturally retire.