A court in south-western China on Wednesday sentenced a kindergarten teacher to three years in prison for punishing 63 children by pricking them with needles attached to a syringe, state media said on Wednesday.
Sun Qiqi pleaded guilty to pricking the children last year as punishment for disobedience at the privately run Xihu Kindergarten in Jianshui county, Yunnan province, the county court said, DPA reported.
The punishments had caused "widespread panic" among the children and parents, who were worried about possible infections from the needles, the official Xinhua news agency quoted the statement as saying.
The court said Sun, who had some medical training, was convicted of "jeopardizing public safety."
The victims were aged from three to five years old. All had tested negative for hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV, the agency said.