crime

Teacher arrested over sexual assault in classroom

31 Comments

Police in Tokyo have arrested a 29-year-old elementary school teacher on suspicion of sexually assaulting a female student last year.

According to police, the incident occurred in a classroom, Sankei Shimbun reported. The suspect, Yoshiyuki Takahashi, who lives in Itabashi Ward, is accused of locking the girl inside a classroom sometime between mid-October and early December last year. Police said he allegedly groped the girl’s breasts and sexually assaulted her. He also took photos of her body.

Police said Takahashi has admitted to the charge and quoted him as saying, “I couldn’t suppress my sexual desires.”

Police said Takahashi lured the girl to the empty classroom by saying he would give her a stamp if she came there after classes had finished for the day. He then locked the classroom.

The girl told police that after the incident, she was too scared to tell anyone what happened. However, in May this year, she encountered Takahashi near her home. He said he wanted her to accompany him so he could apologize to her. She declined and told a friend about the incident. The friend contacted the girl’s school.

Police said that several other female students have since come forward and reported similar incidents committed by Takahashi.

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31 Comments
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Elementary school? These are children which makes him a pedophile. Japan really needs to create a child sex offender’s list.

16 ( +20 / -4 )

Well, doing a little research, I see there are many cases like this with suspended sentencing. What a shame. Shame shame.

7 ( +9 / -2 )

Every once in a while, particularly in cases like these, I wish the reporters/translators would be CLEAR!

6 ( +12 / -6 )

This happens a LOT in Japan. Teachers don't set boundaries between them and their students at all. Most of my friends told me they dated or knew someone who dated their teacher when they were in high school or even middle school. Some teachers become a teacher specifically because they love younger girls or boys. It's so creepy.

5 ( +8 / -3 )

What a snake! Hope he gets some serious jail time. He should be made to pay his victims all he has.

4 ( +8 / -4 )

That is a serial predator. Hopefully, they have a enough evidence to lock him without a suspended sentence. I also hope that they do not just simply allow him to relocate, so he can work at another school in a different prefecture.

4 ( +6 / -2 )

This is quiet common.

This is likely only the 1% or less cases that actually reached the justice system, and not covered up by the school or the police.

Because of how weak the punishments are for these crimes, this guy will highly unlikely sit a single day in prison, and likely will get a suspended sentence if he gets prosecuted at all (which is again unlikely). Especially for rapes vs. minors, Japan courts have rarely punished the perpetrators. I will be shocked if this guy gets anything more than a suspended sentence. Unless someone died or severely injured in the attack, sexual assaults/rapes do not get prison sentences in Japan.

Furthermore, he will quickly recover his teaching license after a few years and can go on the hunt again at another school. There are also pretty much zero social consequences for teachers who sexually assaults their students, which allows these cases to continue and propagate.

3 ( +9 / -6 )

My wife said that in the Japanese press they stated the girl was an elementary school student, not a teenager. That is why she was in the school, and he was able to lock her in and intimidate her!

3 ( +6 / -3 )

Castrate this PoS and throw him in jail. What's it going to take before J-gov gets off its butt and creates a sex offenders registry? These kinds of crimes are becoming an epidemic in Japan. At the very least, tighten the screening procedures for potential educators.

3 ( +6 / -3 )

All these sexy school girl anime and sexy school girl photos and other stuff you see all over Japan certainly doesn't help the situation.

It should be a crime to use the sexy school girl image for anything.

And allow the school girls to choose if they want to wear trousers or not.

Traditionally women and girls are not treated with the respect they deserve in Japan.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

I am left wondering why there is such a wide gap in the time frame:

The suspect, Yoshiyuki Takahashi, who lives in Itabashi Ward, is accused of locking a girl inside a classroom sometime between mid-October and early December last year.

This guy is a piece of vile scum and since he has admitted it and others have come forward, throw the book at him when he's found guilty. Nothing worse than someone who abuses the young and/or the vulnerable.

2 ( +6 / -4 )

"...police said that several other female students have since come forward and reported similar incidents committed by Takahashi."

I love how this sentence is the very last in the story, like the possibility that the guy is a serial offender is not nearly as important as the report of a single incident.

Lead should be: "Police say several female pupils at an elementary school claim that one of their teachers sexually assaulted them. Yoshiyuki Takahashi has been arrested in connection with one of the alleged incidents." etc.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

This is sick, and sicker still that it was an elementary school kid, which means at MAX she was 13 years old, and could have been as young as six.

They really need to do more than just have a rote memory test to get your teacher's license here.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

I can't even begin to imagine how the girl felt as this SCUM was violating her, she was let down by the very same person she trusted and may be looked up to him. heartbreaking and sick. and after the fact she was too shocked to tell anyone and did not really know what to do, but it's only a matter of time before she tells her best friend or her mom. poor girl.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

Seriously need a national list of sex offenders to stop these people getting near children and to let communities know these freaks live near them. Everyone coming into contact with children should have to be checked against this list, similar to the uk CRB check..

1 ( +4 / -3 )

This is quiet common.

This is likely only the 1% or less cases that actually reached the justice system, and not covered up by the school or the police.

Because of how weak the punishments are for these crimes, this guy will highly unlikely sit a single day in prison, and likely will get a suspended sentence if he gets prosecuted at all (which is again unlikely). Especially for rapes vs. minors, Japan courts have rarely punished the perpetrators. I will be shocked if this guy gets anything more than a suspended sentence. Unless someone died or severely injured in the attack, sexual assaults/rapes do not get prison sentences in Japan.

Furthermore, he will quickly recover his teaching license after a few years and can go on the hunt again at another school. There are also pretty much zero social consequences for teachers who sexually assaults their students, which allows these cases to continue and propagate.

I don't doubt that this goes unreported often but I'd be more inclined to believe it wouldn't reach a judge than to believe it gets all the way to guilty and then the sentence is actually suspended and he ends up back in the classroom. I guess it's possible. Do you have any links to cases where that happened? I'm just curious. Suspended sentence means he's found guilty. Are there statistics on this? There must be something. Do you state all this from knowledge or just guessing?

1 ( +2 / -1 )

What a shame. Shame shame, u got it shallots, we gotta put this on front street, increasing the awareness for fairness.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

The girl is probably somewhere between 9 and 11 since girls usually start developing around that age. I have a daughter this age. They are very vulnerable at that age because their bodies are changing so much. I've no doubt it had a psychological effect on her what he did to her. Japan lags behind so far when it comes to protecting its children.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

stormcrow....

My daughter's JHS teacher married her classmate shortly before she graduated from HS. That means he met her in his JHS classroom and was dating with her until she reached the legal age. Pretty creepy.

Creepy? Yes, but also pretty common. I cannot count the number of Japanese (also a couple of foreign) teachers who met their wives in Jr or Sr high school. However, I have yet to meet a female teacher who married a student...

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Police said Takahashi has admitted to the charge and quoted him as saying, “I couldn’t suppress my sexual desires.”

I have read this weird, stilted excuse so many times here. What is the Japanese original phrase?

1 ( +1 / -0 )

People seem to be confused about the age of the girls. This is my best guess:

In Japanese, they don't really have an official word for teenager, although many people use and understand the katakana version of it. In the original article, they most likely used "10年代" or something similar, which means someone from age 10-19. So if that was the case, the girls clearly could have been about fifth grade, which would make them 11ish. Old enough to be in elementary school, get lured by the promise of a sticker or stamp, and still have breasts. Of course I don't have the original article here in Japanese, but that's what for me seems most logical-just a not perfect translation.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

My daughter's JHS teacher married her classmate shortly before she graduated from HS. That means he met her in his JHS classroom and was dating with her until she reached the legal age. Pretty creepy.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

“I couldn’t suppress my sexual desires.”

Kyo wa heiwa dayo neOct. 13  06:59 pm JST

All these sexy school girl anime and sexy school girl photos and other stuff you see all over Japan certainly doesn't help the situation.

It should be a crime to use the sexy school girl image for anything.

And allow the school girls to choose if they want to wear trousers or not.

Traditionally women and girls are not treated with the respect they deserve in Japan.

There's a fetish for that in America too. It's absolutely twisted, perverse and disgusting.

Most of my friends told me they dated or knew someone who dated their teacher when they were in high school or even middle school. Some teachers become a teacher specifically because they love younger girls or boys. It's so creepy.

That has happened quite a bit in my HS. A music teacher got kicked out for pedo, he and the 16 year old student got married. A 26 year old English teacher spent a weekend with some teen boys. my World studies teacher got canned for messing with boys and my senior year English teacher married one of my classmates right after graduation. It truly is like that Police song mentioning 'that book by Nabakov'.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

When a teacher gets a license for the job, they go to college and get an education degree. That includes classes in psychology, esp. for their career child psychology. Then they take tests and get certification to teach. These perverted types use their knowledge of kid psychology as a weapon because they know what children don't and they use their knowledge to serve their sick agenda.

Clergymen of respectable religions also study at seminaries and monasteries and learn psychology and sociology. That's why religions have some snakes in them too.

Mr KiplingOct. 13  07:06 pm JST

stormcrow....

My daughter's JHS teacher married her classmate shortly before she graduated from HS. That means he met her in his JHS classroom and was dating with her until she reached the legal age. Pretty creepy.

Creepy? Yes, but also pretty common. I cannot count the number of Japanese (also a couple of foreign) teachers who met their wives in Jr or Sr high school. However, I have yet to meet a female teacher who married a student...

They do. Recently in America there was a female teacher (Mary Katherine Letourneau) who had an affair with a 12 year old boy and she went to prison for rape. While awaiting sentencing she gave birth to their first child, a daughter. She reached a plea agreement to 6 months in jail and a stayaway order from the student. She violated it and went to prison for nearly 8 years, Eight months later while in prison she gave birth to another daughter, fathered by the same student boy. The case was well known in the media, esp. the US. She and her lover co-authored a book when she was imprisoned, Only One Crime, Love which was published in France. After she goy out of prison she and the male (now 21 years old) got married and the wedding ceremony was even aired on 'Entertainment Tonight'. The couple separated in 2019 and she died of cancer in 2020, leaving most of her assets to the student-husband.

Politician Newt Gingrich himself married his HS geometry teacher in 1962. She was his first wife. And the current French President Emmanuel Macron married his HS theater teacher Brigitte Marie-Claude Macron (25 years his senior) in 2007 and he proposed creating the title 'First Lady' just for her. The French Parliament and public said NON.

It does happen and yes it's creepy. Warped and repulsive to say the least.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

School is like a big omiai for teachers - they get to check out new candidates every year

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Back in the day and still back home teaching is a noble profession with wonderful teachers who take pride and show real professionalism in their work! Japan really needs to formulate a system to remove these sexual predators from the teaching field! As it is, many sex offenders who are fired from one school get re-employed in other prefectures easily and continue with their crimes!

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

This happens a LOT in Japan. Teachers don't set boundaries between them and their students at all. Most of my friends told me they dated or knew someone who dated their teacher when they were in high school or even middle school. Some teachers become a teacher specifically because they love younger girls or boys. It's so creepy.

Great Teacher Onizuka! Lol

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

JayelToday  08:02 am JST

Japan lags behind so far when it comes to protecting its children.

Right. A lot of the boys seem to grow up into people like this Takahashi person, and still manage to become teachers or police officers.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

That time has come Japan to start installing CAMERAS in all classrooms.

-6 ( +2 / -8 )

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