Elephant News reporter Liang Jiaojiao, Zhang Pan, Duan Jinzhe
On the morning of May 17, 2024, the Intermediate People's Court of Jiujiang City, Jiangxi Province, publicly pronounced the second-instance verdict in the case of appellants Zhang Dingjie and Wang Beilei v. defendant Zou X for insulting and abusing the person under care. Elephant News reporters attended the trial.
The Jiujiang Intermediate People's Court found through trial that at around 16:00 on November 9, 2021, Kuan Kuan, a sixth-grade student of a primary school in Jiujiang City, fell to his death in his residential community. The public security organs arrived at the scene after receiving the police and found that Kuan Kuan had a suicide note on his body, saying that his death was related to the head teacher and Chinese teacher Zou.
Prior to the incident, Kuankuan had repeatedly failed to complete the operation in accordance with the prescribed time and quality. The classroom surveillance video shows that Zou used words such as "the king of debts" and "no faith in his words" when criticizing Kuankuan, and carried out acts such as changing seats, slapping his head and neck with a pamphlet, and punishing him for standing to listen to classes. When Zou criticized and educated other students in class, he used basically the same language as Kuankuan.
The Jiujiang Intermediate People's Court held that Zou's criticism and education of Kuankuan in his daily teaching did not substantially deviate from the purpose of education, and that when he criticized and educated other students in class, he also spoke in a stern tone, and did not deliberately target Kuankuan, and that Kuankuan's classmates were able to correctly understand and accept Zou's criticism and education, and that there was no causal relationship between Kuankuan's death and Zou's conduct in the sense of criminal law. Zou's conduct does not constitute the crime of insult or abuse of the person under care. The first-instance judgment found that the facts were clear, the evidence was credible and sufficient, the law was correctly applied, and the trial procedures were lawful, so the appeal was rejected and the first-instance judgment of acquittal was upheld.
When Zou criticized education, he failed to pay attention to the psychological and emotional changes of the immature body and mind, and did not strengthen the assistance to students and communicate with parents in a timely manner afterwards, and some of Zou's speech and behavior (repeatedly ridiculed and discriminated against many students in classroom teaching) did not meet the requirements of the people's teachers' professional ethics, and the competent department of education combined with Zou's other violations of rules and discipline (receiving red envelopes in cash, accepting banquets, etc.), has made corresponding party discipline and government sanctions.
In response to the deletion and deletion of the classroom surveillance video raised by the plaintiff's Kuankuan's parents, the court confirmed the second review and confirmed that the classroom surveillance video had been artificially deleted and missing. One of the videos (after 6 p.m. on November 9, 2021) was deleted by Zhang Liang, a member of the faculty who confessed that he had been in and out of the classroom after the incident and was afraid of being involved, so he deleted part of the video. The court held that the part of the video deleted by Zhang Liang had no connection with the alleged facts in this case.
Another missing video (13:42:15 to 14:42:31 on October 27, 2021) was caused by another teacher at the school, Wang Moujun, unplugging the surveillance video, and this video is also unrelated to the facts alleged in this case.
Regarding the lack of the video from 14:54:21 to 15:30 on October 26, 2021, the court pointed out that the prior technical means could not be further restored, and then it was impossible to determine whether the video objectively existed during that period, let alone identify the reason for the lack of video files. Based on the above three points, the court of second instance held that it could not be proved that the defendant Zou had deliberately deleted or concealed the video, and the court of second instance held that the deletion or deletion of part of the classroom surveillance video file did not affect the determination of facts in this case.
In this regard, Kuankuan's father, Zhang Dingjie, said that the couple believes that the deleted and missing classroom surveillance video is the focus of the case, and they will file a complaint with the Jiangxi Provincial High People's Court to restore the classroom surveillance video and seek answers.
At the scene of the trial, the reporter saw that the defendant Zou appeared in court wearing a black mask throughout the whole process, and did not say anything, and after the verdict was announced, she expressed her obedience to the verdict, and left the seat with the bailiff after signing.
Kuankuan's parents said after the court that the incident had happened for nearly three years, and the head teacher Zou had never taken the initiative to contact him. They reject all civil compensation and settlement, and only want to continue to pursue their criminal responsibility through criminal proceedings.