If I were born again, I would like to be a street…”-The “unprecedented gutter man” who has peeped more than 1,000 times, and his tactics are astonishing.

When I am reborn, I want to be a street.

When he was arrested nine years ago, he told the police that he was a “gutter peeping tom,” and he was sentenced.

On January 26, the Kobe District Court sentenced Hirai to one year and six months in prison, with probation suspended for four years. The judge noted that the defendant “has been fined three times, but he has been unable to stop and is a habitual offender,” and that “it was an unlikely place for a person to hide and be spied on, and the negative impact on the safety and order of prefectural life is great.

On September 8, 2011, Hirai installed a smartphone in a gutter near an underpass in Higashinada Ward, Kobe City, and took videotapes of the underwear of 12 female students who passed by. He himself hid in another gutter about 50 meters away from the site where he set up the smartphone and peeked inside the skirts of women walking above for about four and a half hours. Hirai is believed to have gone under the gutter three times between August 8 and 14 and peeked inside the skirts of about 100 women,” said a reporter from the society department of a national newspaper.

On the day of the incident, a high school girl on her way home found a smartphone in recording mode in the gutter through a gap in the iron grating (lattice lid). The area where the phone was found was too narrow for people to enter, but it was on the way to school for high school girls and students of Konan Women’s University, so the Prefectural Police Community Safety Special Investigation Team proceeded with their investigation, believing it was for the purpose of taking voyeuristic photographs.

At that time, the investigators had the face of defendant Hirai, a habitual criminal, in their minds. On the 14th, six days after the incident, while investigating the area, one of the investigators peeked into the gutter with caution, thinking, ‘He might be there,’ and saw a bag.

When he shined his light on it, he saw a figure. He immediately turned the light to the far end of the gutter, and his eyes met those of Hirai, who was on all fours and looking at him. Hirai was in a hurry, backing up and trying to leave the scene,” said an investigator.

When the investigators shouted, “What are you doing? Hirai replied, “What are you doing?” and tried to escape. When the investigators told him, “Wait, wait, wait, it’s the police,” he obediently followed their instructions, crawled out of the gutter, and voluntarily agreed to come with them. At that point, no damage report had been filed and she was only in the gutter, so even if she admitted that she was trying to peek inside her skirt, she could not be caught red-handed. He told the investigators that he was planning to flee to another prefecture if he was not arrested.

Since he was in the second year of junior high school, Hirai had repeatedly peeked into the gutter more than 1,000 times. When he was in junior high school, he was exploring the gutters for fun and happened to see a woman’s underwear, which excited him so much that he couldn’t stop peeping. Even though he thought in his head, ‘I have to stop,’ he was overcome with desire and ended up in the gutter.

She also says that she sneaks into the gutters late at night or early in the morning when there are no pedestrians around, and that she has no trouble staying in the gutters for five to six hours. He has been reported several times by passersby who found him coming out of the gutter, but when police officers rushed to the scene, he had already disappeared,” said a reporter from a national newspaper.

After being released on bail, Hirai has been undergoing inpatient treatment to prevent recidivism and has shown a desire to rehabilitate himself, but at the time of his arrest last year, he said, “I still feel the same way (about wanting to be on the street). Can this unprecedented voyeuristic man overcome his desires?