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Shiga vice principal tried to silence mother in teacher-student sex case

A screen grab obtained by the Kyoto Shimbun on Tuesday shows the email sent by the vice principal of a high school where one of its teachers is accused of engaging in sexual acts with a male student (Kyoto Shimbun)
Email sent by the vice principal of a high school telling the mother of a male student who couldn’t turn down sexual advances from a teacher to refrain from going to police (Kyoto Shimbun)

SHIGA (TR) – The vice-principal of the high school where one of its teachers was accused of engaging in sexual acts with a male student tried to silence the student’s mother from telling police, the Kyoto Shimbun reported on Wednesday (Sept. 21).

The day after the male student told police in May about his sexual involvement with Tsuyoshi Nakagawa, 29, his former teacher at Ritsumeikan Moriyama High School, his mother received a text from the vice principal telling her Nakagawa was going to be punished by the school administration and tried to keep her from going to police.

“Filing a police report would ruin the course of Nakagawa’s future,” the vice principal wrote. “If you care about him, then you ought to avoid going to the cops.”

The boy’s mother was quoted as saying she was “looking down on the message which makes me furious, even more so if there is a lack of an apology. I’ll never forgive the school for trying to cover up the incident.”

Nakagawa was arrested on Tuesday for allegedly making the boy sleep over twice at his house between March 28 and April 2 to commit sexual acts, such as fondling his genitals, while knowing the boy was 17.

Nakagawa voluntarily stepped down later in May after the case came to light, but told the press “this kind of stuff is a huge pain. I’m struggling here, being treated as if I was a suspect.”

An official at the Ritsumeikan school corporation that runs the high school told the Kyoto that they were “unable to discuss  the case on a personal level, but we are cooperating with police and gave them the information we have on hand, and we hope to support the proceedings of the investigation.”