Osaka man receives three years prison sentence, suspended for five years for indecent assault against woman with intellectual disabilities

By Barrier Free Japan with extracts from NHK

October 7 2021

OSAKA – A former company employee was convicted of indecent assault for forcibly taking a woman with intellectual disabilities who was unable to speak to anyone except her family, into a hotel and touching her breasts. He was sentenced to three years in prison, suspended for five years.

Kanta Ogura, 40, a former company employee in Sakai City, Osaka, was charged with indecent assault for accosting a 19-year-old woman with intellectual disabilities on a street in Osaka City in January, forcing her into a hotel and touching her breasts.

The 19-year-old woman with disabilities living in Osaka Prefecture said she was accosted by a man on a street in Osaka City in January this year and forcibly taken to a hotel where he touched her breasts.

According to the woman’s mother, she has a condition called “scene silence,” in which she can talk with her family but cannot talk with others outside the house.

It took more than four hours for the woman to verbally testify about the damage she suffered, which was a decisive factor in the indictment of Kanta Ogura, 40, a former company employee in Sakai City, Osaka, for indecent assault.

The verdict was handed down at the Osaka District Court on October 7th.

In his ruling on October 7, Osaka District Court Judge Urara Minami said, “This was a despicable and self-centered crime.”

Ogura was sentenced to three years in prison, suspended for five years under probation, as he had demonstrated an attitude of remorse.

The mother said, “There was no end to it..It was a long way to go, but I am relieved.”