An appellate court has upheld a 700,000 won ($595) fine for a man charged with illegally filmed a woman in leggings in a retrial of the case after the Supreme Court overturned a not-guilty verdict for him.

The case drew media attention as a district court and an appeals court were divided over whether secretly filming women in leggings constitutes a sexual crime, and the Supreme Court ruled it does because footage could be maliciously edited and shared online.

The man, whose identity was withheld, was caught and indicted after filming the lower body of a woman dressed in leggings from behind using his mobile phone for about eight seconds while on a bus in 2018.

The Uijeongbu District Court sentenced him to a 700,000 won fine and 24 hours of a sexual violence treatment program, saying what was filmed is considered body parts that can cause sexual desire or humiliation.

The appeals court rejected the sentence and acquitted the man, noting that he did not zoom into particular body parts of the victim in the video and that it was hard to conclude that the woman felt sexually humiliated.

However, the Supreme Court remanded the case in December last year, saying that secret filming of other people's body parts, including those covered with leggings, can constitute a sexual offense and the secretly filmed materials could be maliciously edited and shared with online users.

The ruling was the first court verdict in South Korea that expanded the scope of sexual freedom from a "right to not engage in sexual activity without consent" to a "right to not be sexually objectified against one's will."

In a retrial of the case, the appellate court upheld the fine for him, officials said. (Yonhap)