One of two drivers who fatally struck a Guangdong toddler last year has been sentenced to three and a half years in prison after a trial held in late May. From Xinhua:
Hu Jun was convicted of involuntary homicide by the Nanhai District People’s Court in the city of Foshan, Guangdong Province, where the girl, named Wang Yue, was hit and crushed by Hu’s minibus and another vehicle on Oct. 13.
[…] An earlier statement by the court said Hu was driving in dim lighting conditions amid torrential rain without turning on the headlights of his vehicle. He thought he had hit something but failed to stop and check.
The court said it also issued a lenient sentence because Hu gave himself up to police and paid part of the victim’s medical expenses.
The case earned particular notoriety not because of the accident itself but because of the eighteen passers-by who did nothing to help the injured child. Their inaction revived discussion of China’s supposed moral decline, and of the problem of “Good Samaritans” being sued by the very people they were trying to help. The most prominent case was that of Peng Yu, a young Nanjinger who, after coming to the aid of a fallen elderly woman in 2006, was successfully sued for knocking her over in the first place. The judge’s reasoning, that Peng could have had no reason for helping her except a guilty conscience, sparked an outcry, but his conclusion and the woman’s claims later turned out to be correct.
