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image captionOlympic athlete Shim Suk-hee says she’s been abused for years
A South Korean sports coach has been sentenced to more than 10 years in jail for sexually assaulting an athlete.
Former speed skating coach Cho Jae-beom was found guilty of assaulting champion Shim Suk-hee ahead of the 2018 Olympics in the country.
The coach only admitted verbal and physical abuse against the athlete.
The allegations were first made in the wake of the #MeToo movement when a number of South Korean athletes accused their coaches of abusing them.
Olympic short-track speed skating gold-medallist Shim Suk-hee first accused her former coach in January 2018, when she said he had repeatedly assaulted her since her teenage years.
She said he had beaten her since from the age of seven – and had even broken her fingers with an ice hockey stick.
Other athletes then came forward and Cho was eventually sentenced to 10 months in jail for assaulting Ms Shim and three other skaters.
But in a fresh complaint filed in December 2018, 21-year-old Ms Shim came out to accuse Cho of sexual assault.
She says the sexual assault started in 2014 when she was still a student and continued until shortly before the Pyeongchang Olympic games.
Her fresh charge of sexual abuse led almost 250,000 in South Korea to sign a petition demanding a longer jail term for the coach.
Mr Cho denied the allegation against him and said verbal and physical abuse against Ms Shim had been intended for “discipline”.
The court also ordered him to do 200 hours of sexual offender treatment and banned him from working with children and youths for seven years.read more
South Korean sports coach convicted of sexual assault
