FUKUOKA (TR) – A former staff member at a child consultation center in Fukuoka City in custody over the alleged sexual assault of a boy earlier this year has been arrested again for another incident, police have revealed, reports the Mainichi Shimbun (July 8).
At around 2:00 a.m. on December 23, 2018, Masatsugu Akita is alleged to have sexually assaulted a male pupil, then 11, at the suspect’s residence in Kitakyushu City while knowing he was under age of 13, which is the age of consent in Japan.
According to police, the center permitted the boy to stay overnight.
Akita, who was accused of coerced intercourse on Monday, denies the allegations. “He stayed at the residence, but no obscene acts took place,” the suspect said.
According to the center, Akita started work as an instructor in 2012. The suspect was in charge of health care and counseling. This past February, he resigned under instruction from the center after it was learned he entered a room for children late at night.
On June 17, police first arrested Akita over a separate case involving another boy. In February, the suspect allegedly engaged in acts deemed obscene with the youth, then 13, at a hotel in the prefecture. The victim, a first-year middle school student, was also a pupil at the center.
