Sentence reduced for man who molested neighbor's daughter

On the afternoon of April 8, at the People's Court of Nghe An province, the criminal appeal trial of defendant Dinh Van Kieu (born 1976), residing in Vinh Tan ward, Vinh city, was held for the crime of Molesting a person under 16 years old. The trial was opened due to the defendant's appeal requesting a reduction of his sentence.

According to the indictment, at 2:15 p.m. on February 22, 2018, Dinh Van Kieu went to his neighbor, Mr. Nguyen Thanh Mai, to play. At that time, at Mr. Mai's house, only NTBN (born 2003) was watching TV. Seeing that, Kieu came and sat across from the child to talk. About 15 minutes later, Kieu sat next to N. and used his hand to rub the child's stomach and squeeze the child's sensitive parts.

Then, Kieu told the child not to tell anyone about this and left. About 2 minutes later, Kieu returned to the neighbor's house, continued to forbid the child from telling anyone and gave the child 100 thousand dong, but the girl did not accept it.

The incident was later reported to N.'s parents. The very next day, Mr. Mai and his wife called Kieu and his wife to their house to talk. Here, Kieu knelt down to apologize to the victim's family. The incident was also quickly reported to the police.

At the first instance trial, the panel sentenced the defendant Dinh Van Kieu to 6 months in prison. Disagreeing with the above conclusion, the defendant filed an appeal, asking for a reduction in his sentence.

At the appeal hearing, the defendant argued that the sentence given by the first instance court was too harsh and asked for a suspended sentence. Before the hearing, the victim’s family also filed a petition for a reduced sentence for the defendant.

Considering the case in its entirety, the appellate panel partially accepted the defendant's appeal and decided to reduce Dinh Van Kieu's sentence from 6 months to 4 months in prison for the crime of Obscene acts with a person under 16 years old.