Police in Osaka have arrested a 31-year-old man on suspicion of property damage after he cut a woman's skirt at JR Osaka Station in May.
Police said Hiroaki Takemoto, a construction worker, is accused of using a pair of scissors to snip pieces from the woman’s skirt on an escalator inside the ticket gates of the station on the night of May 25, NHK reported.
Police quoted Takemoto, who was arrested this week, as saying “I wanted to see her underwear. I've done it about 10 times at Osaka Station and other places."
The woman, who is in her 20s, didn’t notice her dress had been cut until the next day when she was washing it. She reported it to station authorities and police.
Police said surveillance camera footage in the station showed Takemoto getting on the escalator directly behind the woman.
© Japan Today
25 Comments
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Sanjinosebleed
What the hell! Lock this soon to be serial rapist up permanently!
CaptDingleheimer
Why would he admit to the other 10 times? Japanese people seem to crack pretty easily under interrogation.
Chico3
I'm surprised no one behind him noticed or didn't do anything about it. This behavior is pretty sick. I'm glad he was caught.
CaptDingleheimer
This begs the question of how these people are ultimately ID'd from CCTV footage. Most random street crimes reported where the suspect was caught, it was examining footage.
Are they running facial recognition software against drivers licenses, passports, etc.?
Are they so good at daisy-chaining footage so as to follow them home? This would be a huge logistical challenge.
BeerDeliveryGuy
In short, yes.
Then they stakeout either the suspect’s residence or other commonly accessed place like local store or workplace to make an arrest.
BeerDeliveryGuy
The Japanese version of COPS 警察24時, often shows them using that very process to track down a suspect’s house, workplace, etc.
Dave Fair
Pathetic stories like this should not be published by the media as it just gives other lowlife scumbags new ideas and something else to try!
cakehole3201
That's what went through your mind Dave? Okaaay ...
cakehole3201
Psychological and emotional torture is one of the police tactics used in Japan.
Japanese Interrogation Techniques From Prisoners’ Perspectives - Taeko Wachi, Kazumi Watanabe, Kaeko Yokota, Yusuke Otsuka, Michael E. Lamb, 2016 (sagepub.com)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0093854815608667?journalCode=cjbb
Sven Asai
I have no idea why this should be necessary and then requires scissors.
factchecker
Another depraved Japanese pervert.
Mocheake
Weirdos galore here. More interested in seeing a woman's underwear than saying hello nicely, trying to meet her and then possibly setting up a date. Creepy guys equals wary women equals low marriage rate and birthrates.
tamanegi
I hope foreign female tourists are made aware of these crimes and to be on guard for male Japanese perverts and molesters. It's a much, much bigger problem than what is reported.
nandakandamanda
This kind of clothes-cutting thing gets reported occasionally, with scissors or box knives etc., but this is the first time I have heard a possible motive. Twisted, but the guy is probably honestly admitting his fetish. In that sense, an interesting article. So what do they do with someone like this, on a charge of 'property damage'?
obladi
I once did a part time job that involved teaching English to a senior police officer. At one point he started showing me porn on his computer like it was the most normal thing in the world. I say this because I believe there are many men who simply have no concept of women as fellow human beings. They are just something to ogle.
Nibek32
nah, I doubt these guys are that interested in foreign women.
lostrune2
Japanese don't just say hi, unless they're touts, lol
Samit Basu
How can he be charged with "Property Damage" instead of "Sexual Assault"????
David K Anderson
If only countless pictures of women in their underwear could be readily found on the internet...
thinkbefore
A lot of Japanese men don't communicate well with the opposite sex so cannot have a normal conversation with them. Many watch porn often and this leads to perversion. This is a case of both property damage and perversion.
Skeeter27
Another piece of filth needing serious mental health counseling
Brian Wheway
Property damage, well that's a good start, how about a charge of assault? Criminal damage, etc, as I've commented before, Asian people don't like loosing face, for this clown his picture should be displayed on a large sign at the entrance to the train station showing a large picture of him and his name. As for the lady who was assaulted , he should be made to pay her for new skirt, and some sort of compensation for her time and losses
girl_in_tokyo
tamanegiSep. 6 04:25 pm JST
This.
It is much more of a problem than is reported, since police sources say only 4% of sex crimes are reported.
The media only touches the surface with stories like this one. I can't count the number of times I've been followed, verbally harassed, groped, and twice someone took the hem of my skirt and tucked it into my waistband when I was on the train.
When I have troubled myself to report these crimes, the police most often don't respond at all. Once when a group of four guys were following my friend and I and verbally harassing us, the police at the koban only told us "don't be out so late" in a patronizing manner and said nothing to the men harassing me, even though they were standing right there and I had pointed them out.
Another time the office refused to come with us so that we could point out the tout on the street who had grabbed and then shoved my friend because she refused to go into the bar he was wanting to guide us into.
And so on ... it's always the same apathy, lack of empathy, and inaction from the cops - this is why women don't report!
The police most often just don't care, the news outlets only publish a bare number of the stories out there, court sentences are weak and they most often wind up with a suspended sentence, and so the men in this country (of all nationalities) continue getting away with sex crimes.