Parents Get Suspended Sentences for Child Abandonment Over Paternity Fears

A mother and stepfather have been handed suspended prison sentences for abandoning a child, stemming from the mother's fear that the child was not biologically hers and her subsequent decision to flee.

The couple began cohabiting in 2008 and married the same year. The husband believed his wife was pregnant with his child, and they raised the baby born in March 2008. However, as the child grew, their appearance, resembling Southeast Asians, raised suspicions. The mother, fearing accountability if her husband discovered the child's true paternity, decided to leave.

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The man directly abandoned the victim child, who was only one year old, in cold weather, making the crime particularly bad.

In March 2009, the mother entrusted the child to her own mother, promising a swift return, and then absconded with her husband's bank account. The husband later learned the child was not his biological son. Subsequently, he and the mother's father reportedly abandoned the approximately one-year-old child at the entrance of a nursery when no one was around.

Investigations revealed that the couple had committed a similar act in 2005 when they were in a common-law marriage. At that time, the mother had given birth to a child whose skin color suggested it was not the husband's child, and they had abandoned that child at a nursery as well.

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The woman is also highly blameworthy and bears heavy guilt for deceiving her husband into raising a child who was not his own, and then abandoning the child and leaving without notice, abandoning her duty of care.

The case surfaced in 2024 during a local government survey of children with birth records but no school enrollment. While another child was identified in this survey, the case was closed due to insufficient evidence of criminal charges. However, police interrogations brought to light the couple's previous abandonment offenses.

The court cited the father's direct abandonment of a one-year-old child in cold weather as particularly egregious. It also noted the mother's significant culpability for deceiving her husband about the child's paternity and abandoning the infant, thus neglecting her duty of care. However, the court considered that both children were confirmed to be alive and that the defendants showed remorse and admitted their actions when determining the sentences.

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However, considering that both victim children were confirmed to be alive, and that the defendants acknowledged their crimes and showed remorse, the sentences were determined.