A Korean man has been jailed four-and-a-half years and ordered to attend an anti-child abuse program after assaulting his teenage son for failing to correctly pick the winners of horse races through prayer.
As reported in The Korea Times, the man – known only by his surname Seo – would regularly lock his son in a “prayer room” and make him pray for up to 14 hours a day to predict winners of upcoming races, beating him with a wooden spoon if he refused. His former wife reportedly ran away in 2011 after being forced to do the same.
Seo had previously been jailed for child abuse and it was while in prison that he devoted himself to religion and came to believe that prayer could reveal racing results.
“It is clear that Seo committed unspeakable acts to his children in an inhumane way,” the Jeju District Court said this week. “His children will have to live with both physical and mental trauma that is beyond comprehension.”
