Original in Japanese : https://www.bengo4.com/c_1009/n_17347/On 6 March, the Tachikawa Branch of the Tokyo District Court (Presiding Judge Takehiko Okada) handed down an 11-year sentence (14 years requested) to a man accused of filming the lower bodies of several boys' and sexually assaulting them while teaching them as a primary school teacher.
The names of the accused as well as those of the victim children were withheld from the court in order to protect their privacy, and only the name "accused" was written in the opening statement. After one of the victim children consulted the head teacher, the accused was dismissed. However, the metropolitan board of education website, where disciplinary actions are usually announced, does not contain any information on this dismissal.
The accused, who appeared to be in his 40s, was charged with two counts of forcible sexual intercourse, 15 counts of indecent assault and a violation of the Child Pornography Act for storing 49 videos.
The victims were five boys aged between 10 and 12, who were in the fifth and sixth grades of primary school at the time. The offences were repeated at the public primary school where he worked as a teacher. The accused had four children with his wife, who divorced him after the incident was discovered.
In a question to the accused at his last trial, he said: 'I was often in charge of the upper fifth and sixth grades and rough classes. I would first listen to each individual, build a relationship of trust, find a child to be the leader and organise the class. I received compliments in my daily classes and was entrusted with many tasks, and I think I was trusted by many people", etc. The accused, who looked back on his work as a teacher, continued to betray the trust of the children.
The offences were committed over a period of several years. In the school's home economics preparation room, computer room, classrooms and boys' toilets, he exposed the lower half of children's bodies and filmed videos of them, touched them on their underwear, put their lower bodies in his mouth or put his own lower body into their mouths.
During this period, he was transferred to another primary school, but instead of stopping, he continued to repeat and escalate his offending. Although there were five victims in the prosecuted case, the accused himself stated that "I think there were seven or eight other children", and that many boys were victimised. He also remembered to keep the children quiet.
'There were many boys around me who trusted me and approached me, and my work had settled down and I had more time on my hands. I turned my attention in a different direction and became involved in the assault. In the questioning of the accused, he recalled his feelings leading up to the incident: 'I filmed it to satisfy my personal sexual desire'.
In his judgment, the judge stated that the defendant "took advantage of the children's trust in him and their inexperience in sexual knowledge to commit the offence, and filmed and stored the images on his smartphone. The crime took place in a primary school, which is supposed to be a safe place for children, and is highly malicious. The court concluded that the crime was "despicable and outrageous, trampling on the hearts of the children who trusted the accused and did not doubt him"."Some kids said 'no', but some said 'okay', and I interpreted that to my advantage and thought that this was something I was allowed to do, that I was being permitted to do it."
On the other hand, he was sentenced to 11 years in prison, taking into account that he had settled with some of the boys and had no previous convictions. One of the boys has been unable to sleep at night since the incident and continues to attend counselling.Several victimised children stated that they felt disgusted and embarrassed, and there are concerns about future damage and negative mental and physical effects. The consequences are serious and the feelings of punishment among the victim children and their parents are severe. After being transferred, he has been committing crimes repeatedly in accordance with his desires for more than two years with the selfish excuse that 'the victim children did not seem to dislike it', and his habitual behaviour is remarkable and his normative awareness is extremely dull. He is so reprehensible and vicious that he will be in prison for a very long time."
11 years is a fairly long sentence for Japan. But with 5 victims aged 10-12, admitting to 7 or 8 other victims and having 49 images, I can imagine that’d be at least a 30 year sentence in an Anglo country. Oral sex is mentioned, he was only charged for two counts of penetration, so I think that means giving oral sex to a minor boy might only count as an indecent assault charge. I was unsure about that as the law doesn’t clearly specify.
