crime

Father swung 2-year-old daughter upside down, hitting her head against table

44 Comments

Police in Hirataka City, Osaka Prefecture, have rearrested a 24-year-old man on suspicion of assaulting his then two-year-old daughter last December.

According to police, Rintaro Hirai, a self-employed worker, grabbed his youngest daughter by the ankles and hung her upside down at their apartment on Dec 26, Kyodo News reported. He then swung the child from left to right and smashed her head into a table, causing serious injuries requiring a month of recovery.

Police said Hirai has admitted to the allegations and quoted him as saying, “She was crying and wouldn’t eat her dinner, so I swung her around as punishment but never intended to hit her head against a table.”

Hirai lives in a four-person household with his 20-year-old common-law wife and his two daughters, aged three and five. Hirai was first arrested in August after his partner reported him to the police for shooting his youngest daughter in the stomach with an air gun. During the investigation, it was discovered that she had a swollen face when she attended preschool last December.

According to Hirakata City and the Osaka Prefectural Chuo Child Welfare Consultation Center, staff at the preschool contacted them regarding her swollen face. Hirai told them that she was injured after being hit by the front door.

However, police received additional reports of the child crying, which prompted child consultation center officials to visit Hirai’s household four times until July this year.

Police are questioning Hirai, who was rearrested on Monday, and the child’s mother about whether he repeatedly abused his daughters who were both taken into protective custody after the air gun incident.

© Japan Today

©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.

44 Comments
Login to comment

Piece of trash

14 ( +19 / -5 )

Take your time coppers, don't want to rush into anything, particularly since it is only abused children you know. Jeez...us.

12 ( +15 / -3 )

Not to mention the children being left in the street at night.

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20220913/p2a/00m/0na/005000c

The children should've been protected better. This was preventable and why is it news 9 months later?

14 ( +16 / -2 )

Poor anger management and complete lack of awareness of the consequences of his actions, it is only fortunate that the incident became known now, if not it could have been much worse in the future.

8 ( +11 / -3 )

Why this man is even allow to be near them after the air gun incident is beyond me. The man is a ticking time bomb. He should never be allow near the kids again

13 ( +18 / -5 )

“She was crying and wouldn’t eat her dinner, so I swung her around as punishment but never intended to hit her head against a table.”

Picking a kid up by the ankles and swinging her around is not discipline. It is abuse! It never ceases to amaze me how Japanese parents come up with more and more cruel and sadistic ways to 'discipline' their kids. Hot water scolding, cold showers, locked in cupboards, lock outside on balconies in the middle of winter. starvation and, let's not forget the good old slap on the top of the head hard enough to knock the kid out. Children are a precious gift. They are not a duty and burden to be abused!

15 ( +20 / -5 )

Lots of people are not psychological develop to be parents

8 ( +11 / -3 )

What a cockroach.

..

*“ Prison is very hard on people who hurt kids. If you get the opportunity you should kill yourself. “ *

6 ( +9 / -3 )

I hope the children will get through this and somehow have a happy life in spite of this terrible upbringing.

10 ( +11 / -1 )

Rintaro Hirai, a 24 year old man has no excuse for grabbing his daughter aged 2 by her ankles and swinging her around as punishment because she would not eat her dinner. After hitting her head against a table he said he "never intended to do that". But by using the word intended he has proven his guilt that it was indeed his intention to swing her head against the table. His wife had called the police more than four times regarding Rintaro Hirai's violent abuse of his children aged 2 and 5. His wife should divorce Rintaro Hirai. He should be in prison for many years and when released, he should Never be allowed to visit his former wife and his children.

9 ( +12 / -3 )

rearrested

Ok, so that’s on the cops and authorities in that city then.

After reading his “history,” how was he even set free? He’s done it before and he’ll do it again.

Lock him up for life, Hirakata City.

Hirai lives in a four-person household with his 20-year-old common-law wife and his two daughters, aged three and five

well, that says it all then

2 ( +6 / -4 )

Police said Hirai has admitted to the allegations and quoted him as saying, “She was crying and wouldn’t eat her dinner, so I swung her around as punishment but never intended to hit her head against a table.”

If you're frustrated your daughter won't eat, then don't let her eat. She'll eat when she feels like it. I think and this is in my opinion, another case of the corporal punishment culture in Japan taken to the extreme. When someone goes out of line, they get beat, be it a foreign worker, a company subordinate, a wife or a kid. Lock this guy up and make sure he does hard labor since he likes to swing.

11 ( +13 / -2 )

Man, I'd sure like to swing him about and thump his head off a few tables.

Children are precious. This bully beast deserves a seeing to.

7 ( +8 / -1 )

He shot his youngest in the stomach with an air gun? And they let him go?

15 ( +17 / -2 )

Should be in jail with Child welfare incompetence as well police and justice not taking care of precious kids. Always late in everything.

5 ( +6 / -1 )

She should have gotten rid of this loser the first time. Man! Real bad news. Poor excuse for a father and role model.

4 ( +5 / -1 )

Human garbage

9 ( +11 / -2 )

I think the license should be needed to be a parent. Too many people don't have qualification to be a parent.

4 ( +6 / -2 )

The reason licenses are needed for people to have children! This piece of trash should never be allowed in a room with kids again. What chance do these children have of growing up normally???

2 ( +4 / -2 )

If you think that bashing 2 year old heads into furniture and shooting them with air guns is a suitable form of behavior correction, becoming a parent really isn't for you. Good for his common law wife for reporting him.

9 ( +9 / -0 )

Hirai lives in a four-person household with his 20-year-old common-law wife and his two daughters, aged three and five.

So "his" daughters not "their" daughters right? If so, he was having babies with a 15 year old.

5 ( +6 / -1 )

Anyone who could hurt a child is pure evil!!

I say they should have the same done to this thing [Rintaro Hirai].

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Most of the abuse happens in the home. Abused kids bully other kids. Therefore, bullying can be traced back to the basic unit of society- the home. And this societal ill spreads in all kinds of social groups.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

See what happens when all you do after a child is shot, beaten, and otherwise abused by a parent/guardian and you just let him/her go with no punishment? And they will let him go here, too. Next time a child will be dead, and the consultation people will say they had no idea it could have happened.

The man should have the children taken away, and should see prison time. Period. The people that let him do it should as well, especially after he had already been arrested once and complaints and cries and whatnot had prompted FOUR visits from said consultation services.

This whole "wait-for-a-corpse-to-act" approach is disgusting.

6 ( +8 / -2 )

What's fascinating, story aside, that all the people hating on (and rightly so) the human filth mentioned in the article, all have a certain number of down votes. Do you seriously disagree that he is trash? Do you stick up for bad behavior? So bizarre.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

What a scumbag. Castration required for this jerk.

4 ( +6 / -2 )

No suspended sentence for this brat, please....

2 ( +3 / -1 )

How would you feel if someone did that to you? Frightening.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

This sounds like one of those stories where the POS gets a talking-to and maybe a suspended sentence, then three years later there's a dead toddler.

I hope the cops handle this appropriately. Bang this b*stard away for a long time.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

I've got ¥100 that says he gets a suspended sentence like the other POS who left his step-kids home alone to go play pachinko, resulting in one of them dying.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Why this man is even allow to be near them after the air gun incident is beyond me. The man is a ticking time bomb. He should never be allow near the kids again

Read the article again. The head smashing incident was last December.

When they say rearrest I'm guessing they mean he got another charge tacked on after it came to light. The wording can be a bit confusing.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Total POS. Toss him into the slammer. The poor little ones and the wife deserve much better.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Do the same to him. A little eye for an eye treatment should open his mind and his head.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

This PoS should never get to see his kids again. Thankfully this didn't lead to an even severe injury and I hope she is able to overcome this traumatic event.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

I wonder what’s wrong with Japanese authorities... children being abused, nothing done...

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

When people get angry and try to make decisions they don't think rationally and in this case, he said he never intended to hit her head against a table. I guess he can now think he never expected to get arrested either.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Hirai was first arrested in August after his partner reported him to the police for shooting his youngest daughter in the stomach with an air gun., and what charges were given to him? its just mind boggling is this an accident? dam stupidity? i am just flabbergasted, what wife of girlfriend would tolerate that from there partner, i would say that 99% people i know would have walked that day.

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

So, assuming the children belong to him and his wife, she was 15 years old - a minor - when she had the first child...and he was an adult, at 19 years old. If these are her two children, I think there was a lot of abuse going on here, on the part of Mr. Hirai. Abuse in taking sexual advantage of a minor, and then the horrific abuse on their two children. I hope his family members are all okay. What a terrible situation to live through.

Also, the fact that this man didn't automatically have his children taken away when he shot one of them with an air gun says it all about the incompetence of the police here. In a country desperately in need of more children, how many more stories of child abuse and murder do we need to hear before policemen here start taking the issue seriously? FOR SHAME.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Things like this makes me think that everyone needs training to have a child.

Fact 1: nobody learns how to rear a child in school.

Maybe it's time they should.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

That 2 years old his child?

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Login to leave a comment

Facebook users

Use your Facebook account to login or register with JapanToday. By doing so, you will also receive an email inviting you to receive our news alerts.

Facebook Connect

Login with your JapanToday account

User registration

Articles, Offers & Useful Resources

A mix of what's trending on our other sites