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A married couple in their 30s were arrested Thursday for abandoning their four children, aged five and younger, at their home in Kobe, Hyogo Prefecture, last November, while they played pachinko for nearly eight hours. One of the children died while they were out.
According to police, Shinya Takashima, 36, a company employee, and his wife Hiromi, 38, who is a dental hygienist, have been arrested on suspicion of parental neglect resulting in death, Fuji TV reported. They are accused of abandoning their 5-year-old son, 3-year-old daughter, 1-year-old son and youngest son, Masamune, who was three months old, at their apartment in Suma Ward from around 10:45 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. on Nov 26.
Police said the couple have admitted to spending the day at a pachinko parlor five kilometers away, near Kobe station.
The couple told police Masamune wasn’t breathing and his body was cold when they returned home and they called 119. However, the infant was pronounced dead upon arrival at the hospital. The cause of death has not been released.
The couple’s three other children were taken into protective custody at a child welfare center in December.
© Japan Today
18 Comments
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Do the hustle
tell me again how there are no problem gamblers in Japan because gambling is illegal.
DaDude
and should never be returned to their scummy parents.
Vince Black
There aren’t really any words to describe these filth. Imprisonment and surgical sterilization is more than appropriate for these two pond scum.
zurcronium
Sad. Many posters on this board glorify family and extoll the virtuous mothers in Japan who take care of their kids often on a full-time basis. These stories just dump that theory into the toilet. Perhaps parents should be interviewed before they have kids. Question one, do you have a gambling addition? Question two, do you really want to have kids? Question three, would you ever leave your kids alone at home for eight hours?
At pachinko places they have signs in the elevator warning parents to not leave their kids in the car. Again, so sad.
WilliB
No they do not. They just show that there are some bad people out there. This woman would not have acted more responsible if she was LGBTwhatever.
kurisupisu
Pachinkk really attracts the dregs-
BTW Japan is going to build casinos?
Seesaw7
I''m very upset with news like this. the parents should be given jail terms for a long time so they won't even remember how to play pachinko when they are released from prison.
rainyday
These pachinko addicted parent stories are way too common, usually they are about kids left in superheated cars in the parking lot in August.
Leaving a three month old in the care of three kids under the age of five is just insane. Usually I am sympathetic to parents who have lost a child to some accident, but everything about this story just makes me so mad at them I can’t muster any.
therougou
Because nobody cares about why they were at pachinko. Most people are more disgusted that an innocent baby was killed. I would like to know why it took this long to arrest them, but we've seen this before.
rgcivilian1
Interesting story but it still doesn't give us much details as too why the parents were at the panchiko parlor other than try to win big Y. hmm
Fighto!
Absolute human garbage. These deadbeat child abusers should never be allowed any future contact with those poor surviving kids.
Agree 100 percent. I just pray that the surviving kids can stay together permanently with a loving family.
Mocheake
Poor kids. They had 2 POS parents. RIP to the little one.
sir_bentley28
The sad thing is that they still have "parental rights" and have all the power and control of what happens to the other kids here in Japan. The kids will be at the facility, the parents will undergo some "parenting course" and "POOF!" here are your kids back! The kids can or may be placed in a better home for the time being, but they'll go right back home with "dear ol' mum and dad"!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugamo_child_abandonment_case
WilliB
rgcivilian
Winning big at the pachinko places is pretty much impossible, unless these two were Pachipro, and even life for Pachipro is difficult these day. No, this is simply addictive behaviour.
carp_boya
Just saw on the news that city officials had visited their home something like twenty times because the kids had missed their health checks and vaccinations. It seems like the neglect was happening for a long time.
starpunk
This is obscene and inexcusable. And what were these two idiots going to do if they somehow did win big yen in the game? Take a vacation to Kagoshima?