TOKYO (TR) – A high school teacher of a school known for volleyball has been arrested for allegedly performing sexual acts with a female student he met on a chat app, reports Nippon News Network (Mar. 30).
On Thursday, Tokyo Metropolitan Police arrested Ryosuke Yagura, 27, of Shimokitazawa Seitoku High School in Setagaya Ward, for allegedly performing sexual acts with the girl, 17, at a hotel in Shinjuku Ward in January.
Yagura has admitted to the charges, telling police he met the girl, a second-year student, on the day of the alleged conduct through the chat app Line.
The case came to light after the girl contacted police when she could no longer reach Yagura.
An investigative source told Nikkei Gendai (Mar. 30) that the two “didn’t know each other, the girl posted on a message board on Line saying ‘I’m bored, let’s chat’ and got responses from 20 or 30 men.”
The suspect was, apparently, the first to respond. “The two met up and seemed to get along, so they ended up in a hotel where they carried out sexual acts, but Yagura didn’t pay any money,” the source added. “The high school girl didn’t know Yagura was a teacher, and for some reason went to the cops on March 10. And that’s how the case came to light.”
Volleyball champions
Shimokitazawa Seitoku High School is known for having a formidable presence in volleyball. The school won the national volleyball high school championships in 2016 and 2017.
When the school won in 2016, Yagura posted online that he “can’t teach volleyball, but I hope to do something next time where I can contribute to the next win.”
For such a teacher of high school girls to commit sexual acts with a student is all too appalling, Nikkei Gendai says.
“Betrayal”
The school’s deputy principal said that “appalling doesn’t do this justice, this feels more like…oh my god. I’m furious at the betrayal — the whole thing.”
“I learned [about the arrest] on the news at noon. [Yagura] wasn’t part of our volleyball team, he was one of a number of advisors for our basketball division,” the deputy principal said. “He didn’t have any particular issues with our students.”
“I’ve been instructing the teachers to have a proper work attitude, and interact with the students while keeping an appropriate distance,” the principal said, “and I even told them over and over that they should use Line while keeping in mind how they’re in a position as teachers.”
The school might be able to raise Olympic athletes, but its training toward teachers appears to be lacking, muses Nikkei Gendai.
