Joe McConnell
A Taiwanese kindergarten teacher has been sentenced to 28 years in prison for more than 200 child sex crimes, in a case that has sparked widespread anger across the island.
The Taipei District Court judge said the man, identified by the court as Mao, committed “heinous” crimes that caused “severe physical and mental trauma” to six children, all under the age of seven.
The case has been in the spotlight for weeks, as anger has grown over the scale of Mao’s crimes and the way authorities initially handled them.
Many have pointed out that Mao was not suspended after an initial report in 2022, which could have led to a higher number of children among his victims.
Warning: Some readers may find the details of this report shocking.
He was arrested in July 2023 after other parents filed complaints against him.
“If the local government could have done a better job in 2022, there would not have been this tragedy in 2023,” says lawmaker Lin Yueh-chin.
The parents also complained about a lack of transparency during the investigation, saying they were denied access to surveillance footage and investigation records.
Last year, Mao was suspended and banned from teaching. His kindergarten license was also revoked.
On Friday, Mao was convicted of a series of crimes, including rape and forcing minors to make sexually explicit videos.
Investigations are ongoing into a number of other allegations made by the parents.
According to court documents, Mao committed the crimes while working at a private kindergarten in the capital Taipei.
The 30-year-old, who has a degree in social work, had been working at the nursery school since September 2021.
He was responsible for managing the video surveillance cameras, providing teaching assistance, accompanying and picking up the children and supervising them during lunch breaks.
“The number of victims was high, the crime was brutal, the victims suffered severe physical and mental trauma and the attitude of the defendants after committing the crimes was appalling,” the judge said.
The public was horrified by the details released by the media earlier this year.
The first complaint against Mao was reportedly filed in July 2022. But the case was dropped after an investigation by the Taipei City Education Investigation Bureau and prosecutors failed to find any evidence.
Despite warnings in various parent messaging groups, it wasn’t until a year later that other parents reported him to the police.
The full extent of his crimes was revealed only after relatives demanded the confiscation of Mao’s phone, according to lawmaker Lin Yueh-chin, who supported the parents in their legal cases. Authorities later found more than 600 private videos of the children.
Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an publicly apologized in July.
