Press "Enter" to skip to content

Kyoto: MK Taxi driver accused of raping drunk passenger in love hotel

MK Taxi
A driver for MK Taxi has been accused of taking a female passenger in a love hotel last month

KYOTO (TR) – Kyoto Prefectural Police last week arrested a 44-year-old male taxi driver with firm MK Taxi for allegedly raping a female passenger in Kyoto City.

The driver, Atsushi Takagi, says the encounter was consensual, a claim the victim denies since she had passed out.

Who’s telling the truth? That is not known, but evening tabloid Nikkan Gendai (Mar. 24) has a rundown of the incident.

At around 10:45 p.m. on February 25, Takagi picked up the 21-year-old woman in the Kawaramachi business district.

The woman, a part-time worker, had been drinking with an acquaintance. Concerned about the well-being of the woman, who was very intoxicated, the acquaintance offered to ride with her. However, Takagi said he could take her home if he was given an address.

Takagi instead drove for 30 minutes to a love hotel in Nishikyo Ward. He then carried her to a room. After stripping down her comatose body, he is alleged to have sexually assaulted her over a two-hour period.

“When she returned to consciousness, she was again in Takagi’s cab,” an investigator tells Gendai. “She then wrote via Line to the acquaintance, ‘I was raped by the taxi driver.'”

Takagi was identified as the driver of the vehicle after the acquaintance remembered she got into a vehicle from MK Taxi. A subsequent examination of security camera footage shows him carrying the victim, who was unable to walk, from a parking lot near the love hotel.

Takagi has been accused of quasi-coerced intercourse. “Since she wanted it, I only complied,” the suspect was later quoted by police in denying the allegations. The victim says no such consent was given. “The act was done while I was unconscious,” she said.

At some point during the incident, the woman awoke and noticed that her lower body was unclothed, causing to her to believe that she had been raped, according to the aforementioned investigator.

“The love hotel is near Takagi’s home, and he also knew the lay of the land since he is a taxi driver,” the investigator continues. “Perhaps he was thinking of going there from the beginning.”

Second incident in recent months

This incident is the second involving MK Taxi, which is based in Kyoto, in recent months. In December, the president of subsidiary Tokyo MK Taxi resigned after he was arrested for attacking cab driver from another company.

A representative of MK Taxi told the Asahi Shimbun (Mar. 23) that since the investigation is ongoing a comment cannot be issued. “But if [the allegations] are factual, it is indeed regrettable,” the representative said.