The principal gave a press conference as if he were someone else, saying, “I’m only human.”… Girl left on a bus in the blazing sun, “too sad to see her when she was found.”

The trial of a tragic case has begun.

On April 23, the Shizuoka District Court held the first trial in the case of a 3-year-old girl who was left to die under the blazing sun at a certified kindergarten in Makinohara, the same prefecture. Tatsuyoshi Masuda, 74, former director of Kawasaki Kindergarten, and two others are charged with manslaughter.

According to the indictment, in September 2010, Masuda was driving a bus that was supposed to drop off all the children safely, but he failed to check and locked the doors with the windows closed. 3-year-old girl A was left in the bus and died of heat stroke. The three-year-old girl, A, was left in the car and died of heat stroke.

The former homeroom teacher, who is also charged with manslaughter, said she failed to contact the parents because she thought the child was tardy or absent. Masuda and the other defendants have admitted to the charges against them.

FRIDAY Digital” reported in detail on the extremely careless incident in which a young girl became a victim in an article distributed on September 9, 2010. We would like to recount the unbelievable words and actions of defendant Masuda immediately after the incident (some parts have been corrected).

Parents in a Panic

I was looking forward to going to kindergarten on the bus. How could this have happened? ……”

The father of the deceased girl expressed his anger at the parents’ meeting held on September 7, 2010. A total of 114 people attended the meeting. The panicked parents at the meeting broke down in tears, and 13 were taken to the hospital for hyperventilation and other injuries.

The incident occurred on September 5. A (3 at the time) was left on a bus at Kawasaki Kindergarten (Makinohara City, Shizuoka Prefecture), a certified childcare center, and died. The bus arrived at the kindergarten before 9:00 a.m., but the staff failed to check the bus, and the child was left in the bus for five hours under the scorching sun at temperatures of over 30 degrees Celsius.

The bus driver was on vacation that day.” We contacted three temporary drivers, but they refused, so the then-preschool director, defendant Masuda, took over. There was a female dispatched employee in her 70s on the bus, but she entered ‘Arrive at school’ into the preschool’s app without checking that Ms. A had gotten off. The homeroom teacher was aware of Ms. A’s absence, but assumed she was absent,” said a reporter from the society section of a national newspaper.