Former Judo School Principal’s Sexual Assault Trial: Defendant’s “Unacceptable Words of Remorse” for Committing Crimes Against 9 Children One After Another Due to His Distorted Sexual Habits

This year’s “2025 Violent & Serious Incidents” will be a selection of the many incidents reported by FRIDAY Digital in 2025. This time, we will focus on the “Former Judo School Principal Sexual Assault Trial,” in which a man who ran a judo school committed crimes against nine of his students.

FRIDAY Digital” reported the trial from the first trial on June 27, 2013, to the sentencing hearing on October 22, 2013, in four articles. The following are the articles from that time with new content.

A large amount of child pornography found on a cell phone

The case began on November 7, 2012, when the Chiba Prefectural Police arrested Yuta Ishino on suspicion of assault for the May 2011 incident in which he forcibly poured soy sauce into the mouth of a boy, A, during a training camp. During the investigation of the assault, a large amount of child pornography was found on Ishino’s smartphone, and the sexual assault was discovered.

The investigators analyzed the child pornography. The investigators analyzed the child pornography and identified each of the girl victims one by one. Starting with the arrest of Ms. B, who was under 13 years old at the time of the incident, on January 7, 2013, for sexual assault, and continuing with the arrest of Ms. I on June 10, 2013, for violation of the Child Welfare Law, there were a total of nine victims. Ishino was arrested and charged with 10 crimes, including assault on a child, violation of the Child Welfare Law, non-consensual sexual intercourse, photographing sexual acts, and violation of the Child Pornography Prohibition Law.

At his first trial on June 27, 2013, the prosecutor read the six indictments for 30 minutes, revealing the details of Ishino’s horrific crimes.

The defendant said that all of the sexual assaults committed between 1947 and 2012 against five former schoolgirls, B-F, who were under 13 years old at the time of the incidents, took place while the victims were sleeping, and that they were unaware that they had even been victimized. A note was found on the defendant Ishino’s phone stating, “Sleeping pills camp, make them take sleeping pills when they go to bed.

The defendant thought he would do something sexual to Ms. B, who was participating in the camp, so he made her drink juice containing a sleep inducing drug. He then sexually assaulted Ms. B. as she slept.”

In the car parked at a service area, the defendant turned up Ms. D’s clothes and touched her while she slept and sexually assaulted her. During the camp, he also sexually assaulted Ms. D while she was sleeping. On another day, he ejaculated on Ms. D’s face while she was sleeping in the car, and then poured semen into her mouth in an indecent act.

‘Bullied by inmates’

The indictment in the case of Mr. I, the last person arrested, was read at the second trial on August 14, ’25. It was a spurious charge that he took advantage of his position as a leader to sexually assault Ms. I, who was under 18 years old, eight times in 2009. In her statement read by the prosecutor, Ms. I expressed her anger at Ishino as follows.

《”I felt that (defendant Ishino) was playing with my body, but when I refused (sexual intercourse), he became unhappy, ignored me, and intentionally practiced hard on me, so I couldn’t say I didn’t want to do it.

Although I wondered whether or not to file a police report, when I heard that there were many victims, I thought it was really unforgivable. I want the defendant to understand that his actions are socially unforgivable, so I hope he will be punished severely.”

During the police interrogation, defendant Ishino said, “I could not resist my desire to see and touch the sexual parts of girls I knew. He admitted that he committed the crime because he had a propensity to get aroused by engaging in sexual acts without being discovered, looking at sexual parts, and taking voyeuristic photographs.

In court, he admitted all the charges against him, and at the second trial, he admitted his guilt and apologized for his crime.

One of the comments that upset the feelings of the guardians of the victim was when the victim’s lawyer asked, “What are you going to do after you get out of prison? one of the comments that upset the feelings of the victims’ guardians was when the victim’s attorney asked, “What are you going to do after you get out of prison? The reason being that he has a grandmother and father who need his care, but going back to his parents’ home means reappearing in the community where many of the victims live.

Judge Miyamoto also asked, “There is a program in the prison called the Sex Offender Treatment Program, are you willing to take it?” When asked, “Are you willing to take the program?” he suddenly replied in a loud voice, repeatedly exhaling, “My crime is a sex crime.

‘My crime is a sex crime. I read in a book that sex offenders are bullied by the same inmates. In fact, during my detention period, someone who knew me from the press came in after me and got into trouble. So I am eager to get the program, but I am also afraid.”

The victim’s mother mentioned this in her opinion statement, stating.

If he is truly remorseful and intends not to re-offend, then I am at a point where I can’t think of any other answer than to take the program.”

How serious are the words of remorse?

This mother also pointed out that the defendant Ishino was trying to keep the guardians away from the camp by making them keep strict hours to drop off and pick up their children, and she also expressed her anger at the defendant while sobbing.

《”I found out that the defendant made the children practice hard from early morning to night, out of sight of their guardians at the camp, in order to satisfy his own twisted desires. I can only think that the camp was prepared as a device to satisfy the defendant’s sexual desire, and I cannot repent enough for having sent my daughter to this device as instructed by the defendant.”

In his closing argument, the prosecutor emphasized the seriousness of the case, stating that “this was a case that shook the entire society, including children and their guardians, as a series of crimes committed by a judo instructor targeting his students. He also pointed out that “the defendant’s personality bias and tendency to commit sexual crimes targeting young girls are extremely remarkable and serious, and the possibility of recidivism is very high,” and asked for a sentence of “25 years in prison.

The defense attorney, on the other hand, stated that he would “seek the most lenient sentence possible” because the crimes were committed mainly while the victim was sleeping and did not cause direct pain to the victim, and because his expulsion from the All Japan Judo Federation constituted a social sanction.

At the sentencing hearing held at the Chiba District Court on October 22, 2013, Ishino was sentenced to 22 years in prison.

Judge Satoshi Miyamoto stated that the defendant “committed a despicable crime by using the victims to satisfy his own sexual desire, as they were in a defenseless state while asleep and had no memory of the crime,” and that “the number of victims and the number of crimes committed make the crime extremely serious compared to similar cases, and a considerable length of prison term is unavoidable. He said, “The number of victims and the number of crimes committed are extremely bad compared to similar cases.

Writer Nakahira Nakahira, who covered the trial, had the following to say about Ishino’s future.

At the trial, when Ishino was asked by the victim’s attorney how he felt about betraying the children’s trust and committing the crime, he replied, ‘I feel sorry for the children of the victims. He said that he regretted doing this to the children, including the victim children this time, who had come to Ishino Juku because they liked it despite the rigorous practice almost every day, and had missed him, calling him ‘Ishino Sensei, Ishino Sensei.

On the other hand, defendant Ishino is a fierce fighter who trained in judo so well that he opened a judo juku, but he is also a small-minded person, as he said that he was afraid that if he went through the sex offender treatment program in prison, people would find out that he was a sex offender and bully him.

He has not written a letter of apology to any of his victims to date. I think that is because he was afraid that if he were to write an apology to all of them, he would have to face the crimes he committed against each of them. Even if he wrote tens of thousands of letters of apology, the guardians would not forgive him, so I thought he was afraid of the bare hatred that would be directed at him by the guardians.

In the end, I don’t think he was prepared or remorseful enough to continue apologizing no matter how much abuse he received from the victim’s parents.

While Ishino said that judo was all he had ever had, he went so far as to say that he would not be involved in judo in the future in order to atone for his sins.

Ishino did not appeal his sentence, and his conviction was finalized.