"Really Disgusting, I Hate You Too"... Ju Homin's Son Told This by a Special Education Teacher

Teacher's Remarks Revealed Through Indictment
Teacher's Side: "Selective Editing Omitting Full Context"
Ju Homin: "Regret Filing Complaint... Will Submit Petition"

The remarks made by teacher A, who was indicted on charges of making abusive statements to Joo Mo, the son of webtoon artist Joo Ho-min (then 10 years old), during disciplinary action, were revealed through the prosecution's indictment. In response, the teacher's lawyer denied the allegations, stating that "only negative remarks were selectively compiled."

[Image source=Yonhap News]

"Really annoying"... Remarks made by the special education teacher to Joo Mo revealed

On the 2nd, the indictment of Mr. A, submitted by the Ministry of Justice to the office of Yoo Sang-beom, a member of the People Power Party, contained the statements Mr. A made to Joo Mo on September 13 of last year in a customized learning class at an elementary school located in Yongin-si, Gyeonggi Province.

It is presumed that these remarks were recorded at the time when Joo Ho-min and his wife placed a voice recorder in their son’s bag, who is on the autism spectrum.

On September 5 of last year, Joo Mo was separated from his original classroom to a special education class managed by Mr. A due to sudden behavioral issues.

According to the indictment, on September 13 last year, Mr. A said to Joo Mo in the classroom, "Ah, you’re really annoying. What on earth is going on in your head? What are you always thinking about?" and "Your behavior is very bad; I’m talking about you."

Previously, Mr. A’s side claimed that the background of these remarks was that during a dictation lesson, to explain the meaning of "bad," he gave an example saying, "Pulling down the pants of a victim student during class is a bad behavior."

Mr. A also said to Joo Mo, "Ugh, I hate it, I hate it so much, I hate you, I really hate you. You can’t even eat school meals. Do you know why? Because you can’t meet your friends." He continued, "Do you know why you’re like this? Why you can’t go to your classmates? You can’t go to your classroom. You can’t see your friends’ faces. Do you want to go to your friends? You can’t, you really can’t," emphasizing Joo Mo’s situation.

In a written statement, Mr. A explained, "Because of this (sudden) behavior, Joo Mo cannot meet his friends or eat meals with them, but this was only emphasized to prevent the same incident from happening again and there was absolutely no intention to emotionally abuse the student."

Mr. A’s lawyer: "Selective omission of context is close to malicious 'patchwork'"

However, the prosecution judged Mr. A’s remarks as "emotional abuse that harms the mental health and development of a disabled child" and indicted him on charges of violating the Child Abuse Punishment Act and the Welfare of Disabled Persons Act. Following the prosecution’s indictment, Mr. A was suspended from his position but was reinstated on the 1st by Lim Tae-hee, Superintendent of Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education.

Regarding this, Mr. A’s lawyer told Hankyoreh in an interview, "The two-and-a-half-hour conversation was selectively compiled by extracting only negative remarks without considering the overall context." He added, "The 'annoying remarks' were not scolding Joo Mo but were the teacher’s mutterings, with preceding and following statements omitted."

He especially pointed out, "The prosecution’s indictment excludes Joo Mo’s responses," explaining, "In a matter dealing with whether it was discipline or abuse, the parts proving discipline were completely omitted."

Mr. A’s next trial will be held on the 28th at the Suwon District Court.

Joo Ho-min: "Regret filing the complaint deeply... Will submit a petition"

In response, Joo Ho-min posted on his YouTube channel community, "For several days, the reports about my family have caused confusion and fatigue to many people," and expressed "deep apologies."

Joo Ho-min answered various suspicions related to the incident and expressed regret for filing the complaint without meeting the teacher first, saying, "I deeply regret everything. Things that become clear afterward were not visible at the center of the incident, where we only thought about the child’s stability."

He added the reason for avoiding a face-to-face meeting with the teacher, "I had applied for a meeting with the teacher but canceled it because I was not confident in calmly resolving the matter face-to-face and feared that meeting might make the situation worse."

Furthermore, Joo Ho-min said, "After consulting with my wife, we plan to submit a petition asking for leniency for the teacher," and promised a swift resolution, stating, "We only saw the teacher’s position through the media reports after the trial began without meeting. We learned about the teacher’s situation for the first time through the written statement. We feel responsible because the teacher’s life could be seriously threatened depending on the suspension and the trial outcome."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.