FUKUSHIMA (TR) – A court here this week handed a man a prison term over the repeated sexual abuse of his adopted daughter while she was a teenager and filming the incidents on his smartphone, reports Kyodo News (Dec. 24).
On Wednesday at the Aizuwakamatsu Branch of the Fukushima District Court, the presiding judge sentenced the unnamed man to 10 years in prison on charges of sexual intercourse by a guardian and violating the Child Prostitution and Pornography Prohibition Act.
The prosecution had requested a 12-year term.
According to the ruling, the unnamed defendant repeatedly had sexual intercourse with the adopted daughter, then between the ages of 13 and 15, at his home while knowing that she was under 18 and filmed the acts.
The defendant and the mother of the adopted girl were married at the time. The matter was discovered when she became suspicious after learning that the defendant had tried to go out with the girl without her consent and checked her smartphone.
The adopted daughter confided, “I put up with it because I didn’t want our family to be torn apart.”
In an interview after the verdict was handed down, the mother said with a trembling voice, “I cannot forgive this. I don’t think he will be rehabilitated in 10 years. The sentence for a sex crime is far too light.”
In explaining the ruling, presiding judge Hisataka Sato noted that the defendant had habitually engaged in sexual intercourse with his adopted daughter for many years, beginning when she was in the upper grades of elementary school. The judge said, “His behavior was disgusting and despicable.”
The judge rejected the defendant’s argument that the his adopted daughter was his girlfriend. “There is absolutely no room for leniency. This is an extremely serious case, even among similar cases,” the judge said.
To prevent their identification, the names and ages of the defendant and his adopted daughter were concealed during the trial.
