Taichung school baseball coach accused of molesting dozens of children

Taipei, Dec. 17 (CNA) A baseball coach at a Taichung elementary school was recently fired and placed under investigation for allegedly molesting dozens of children under his care, authorities in the city said Tuesday.

The allegations against the coach were made public at a news conference Tuesday morning, at which Taichung City Councilor Chiang Ho-shu (江和樹) was joined by two of the alleged victims' mothers.

Chiang said the parents had noticed changes in their children's behavior, and, after asking about it, learned that they had been touched by the coach of their school baseball team. They then notified the school and Taichung police.

Taichung police opened an investigation into the matter, but upon summoning the coach for questioning, he attempted, unsuccessfully, to commit suicide, Chiang said.

After arresting the coach, police found multiple sexually explicit video recordings on his phone, based on which they were able to identify at least 25 victims, many between grades 2 and 6, as well as some who had already gone on to junior high school, Chiang said.

However, based on the fact that the coach had been at the school for six years, he may have victimized as many as 100 kids, Chiang said.

Chiang said the coach was convicted of forced indecency in 2012 but had his sentence suspended for five years. He was then hired by the school in 2019.

"How defective is the Education Bureau's hiring process, that it was unable to screen out a sexual predator?" Chiang asked.

One victim's mother, meanwhile, described the horror of having to identify her child in one of the videos to police. "Every day we sent him to school, it's like we were personally delivering him to hell," she said.

In response to the revelations, Taichung Bureau of Education Director Chiang Woei-min (蔣偉民) said the school had immediately suspended the coach after being contacted by the victims' parents on Oct. 26. He was then fired on Nov. 11.

Chiang Woei-min said that when the school hired the coach in 2019, it checked the Ministry of Education's database of people prohibited from working in education and did not find any red flags.

However, the Ministry of Justice uploaded new records to the system in 2021, and it is still being investigated whether the school conducted regular follow-up checks via the database as is legally required, he said.

The Taichung Police Department, meanwhile, said the criminal record checks it issues typically do not include information on suspended sentences, as long as the individual did not violate the terms of their probation.

At a city council meeting Tuesday, Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) said the coach is currently in the custody of prosecutors, who have filed a legal motion to hold him in detention incommunicado as their investigation proceeds.