The mother’s “anger” when she told the court about the current situation of the victim girl, saying that “everything has been a difficult time.”

He used a blind spot in the classroom to teach her.
The parents are very angry at Ishida, who was trusted by the victim girl as a former head of the school (September ’25). She endured sexual harassment in a closed room for a long period of time to the limit of her endurance, taking advantage of her relationship as a teacher and student.
On December 23, the second trial of Chikakazu Ishida, 45, was held at the Tokyo District Court. The mother of a 15-year-old junior high school girl, A, who was sexually harassed by a cram school teacher she trusted, tearfully expressed her anger as she took the stand.
On September 14, 2013, Ishida, a former head teacher at School IE, a private tutoring cram school operated by the Motivation Switch Group, was arrested on suspicion of indecent assault. This tutoring school had a partition between desks so that the instructor sat next to the students and taught them, making it difficult for the students to see the partition from the surrounding environment.
Around February of this year, Ishida began to touch Ms. A’s thighs during instruction, and around March, he put his hand inside her clothes and touched her breast over her underwear. Ishida was charged with indecent assault, but this was for touching Ms. A’s breasts over her underwear, not for touching her thighs.
During the trial, Ishida stated his motive for the crime : “I accidentally touched Ms. A’s breast with my arm during instruction, and she did not react, which made me want to touch her with my palm next time.
In addition, on October 2, Ishida was arrested again on the charge of indecent assault on a junior high school girl, Ms. B (13 years old at the time), whom he had called in January of this year to give her a birthday present, because he put his arms around her from the front and hugged her inside a cram school building.
When Ms. B became a junior high school student, he began touching her thighs during instruction. However, Ishida was charged with assault rather than indecent assault because he claimed during the interrogation that “I did not hug Mr. B for sexual purposes, but out of a sense of affection and love.
The victim girls were distressed because they had no one to talk to.
Since Mr. Ishida had been teaching Ms. A and Mr. B since they were both in elementary school, he was trusted not only by them but also by their families. Because the crime took advantage of that trust, the two victims were distressed after the incident because they could not talk to anyone about it, according to the statement.
Ishida was an adult whom I could easily talk to, and I trusted him as a kind teacher. Therefore, I myself did not want to accept the fact that the teacher would touch my thighs and breasts. In this way, I thought about many things in my head, and it was difficult for me to talk to anyone about it.
I thought that if I told my parents about this, I would make them sad, and I myself was reluctant to talk about it with them, so I couldn’t.” (Ms. B’s affidavit)
Ms. A consulted a counselor, who listened to her concerns that she could not even tell her family, but she needed a lot of time before she could confide in him about the sexual harm she had suffered at the hands of defendant Ishida.
At the second trial, prior to the argument, Ms. A’s mother made a statement of opinion.
She gave a glare to defendant Ishida, who was sitting at the defendant’s table, for a moment, and then expressed her anger at him, as Ms. A’s mother did at the beginning of the trial.
She began to speak only self-deprecating words.
According to Ms. A’s mother, Ms. A’s health condition worsened after the arrest of Ishida, and she began to rely on medical facilities.
She said, “A lot of my daily life, such as school, time with my family, my favorite lessons, and fun times with my friends, have been taken away from me, and everything has turned into a hard time, or a tough time to overcome.
Then, as if blaming herself for not trusting the defendant Ishida and not being aware of the damage she had done to Ms. A, she sobbed and said, “I am so sorry for what I have done to my daughter.
I suffer from the guilt of having chosen and recommended a place that caused my daughter pain for an extended period of time.” Why did I believe what the defendant said? Couldn’t I have recognized my daughter’s hidden feelings?”
Perhaps intimidated by the anger of Ms. A’s mother, who had once trusted him, Ishida turned his head down and did not look at the witness stand.
The closing argument followed.
The prosecutor stated, “Despite his position as the head of a private tutoring school, he took advantage of the fact that the victims did not show any signs of reluctance and continuously tried to touch them, which is outrageous. The defendant, who lacks a sense of normality and shows no sincere attitude of remorse, may well commit a second offense,” and requested a sentence of “2 years and 6 months.
On the other hand, the defense counsel stated , “The indecent act (toward Ms. A) was to put his hand on her chest over her clothes, not to touch her bare skin directly. ( The assault (on Mr. B) was also minor compared to other similar crimes, because he hugged the victim without her consent and stopped himself when he noticed her reaction of rejection.
The court also stated that “a suspended sentence is appropriate” based on the fact that “ she was detained for a long time, deeply regretting the trouble she caused to many people by her foolish act, and pledging never to work as a teacher of children again.
According to Ms. A’s mother, Ms. A recently said, “ I’ m tired,” and “I can’t do anything. I can’ t do anything, I’m a nuisance to everyone, so I want to disappear,” and other such self-deprecating words. The fact that Ms. A was repeatedly sexually abused by a “teacher” whom she trusted may have resulted in a significant lowering of her sense of self-esteem.
In her statement of opinion, Ms. A’s mother emphasized that Ms. A’s decision to report the sexual abuse by Mr. Ishida was “a struggle for her daughter to reclaim her life. She sobbed, sometimes choking on her own words, as she pleaded with the judge, “My daughter is ‘worth living for.
In order for my daughter to be able to clear her heart and say, ‘I am worth living,’ I think it is necessary for the judge to give her a firm judgment so that she herself can feel that her actions had great meaning.”
One wonders how much of the mother’s plaintive cries will reach the judge’s ears.
The verdict is scheduled to be handed down on January 8.

Interview and text: Nakahira Ryo PHOTO: Shinji Hasuo