A Saitama court sentenced a 43-year-old Chinese man to two years and six months in prison, suspended for four years, for hitting a group of elementary school children with his car and fleeing the scene in an attempt to avoid being caught for drunken driving.
The incident occurred on May 14 in the city of Misato, Saitama Prefecture. Deng Hongpeng, a demolition worker, was driving under the influence and struck a group of ten children walking along a city road from behind, injuring four sixth-grade boys. One of the boys suffered a fractured leg.
He then fled the scene without helping the children and later stayed at an acquaintance’s home to avoid being flagged for drunken driving. The vehicle was later found and seized in a residential parking lot about 2 kilometers from the scene.
Deng turned himself in to police on May 18, accompanied by his wife and a female acquaintance.
Prosecutors had sought a two-and-a-half-year prison sentence, saying Deng drank five medium-sized mugs of draft beer before driving on the day of the incident.
During closing arguments, they argued that after the crash, Deng told people around him, “I’ll just say I didn’t understand Japanese and left because the kids said they were fine,” accusing him of “lacking the responsibility expected of a driver.”
Presiding Judge Takuya Okuyama criticized Deng for “failing to exercise basic caution,” adding that he fled the scene to evade being discovered in an intoxicated state and avoid taking responsibility for his actions.
However, he also acknowledged that Deng had shown remorse by paying compensation to three of the four injured children and pledging not to drive again, which led to the decision to grant a suspended sentence.
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