A former elementary school teacher tells her trial about her “appalling motive” for putting her hand up her skirt!　A former elementary school teacher tells her “appalling motive” at the trial.

Indecent behavior toward multiple students

In the course of skinship, I touched her thighs.

A 26-year-old former elementary school teacher who was arrested for touching a girl who was his student, stated his motive as such and emphasized that he did not intend to do so for the purpose of indecency.

On January 8, Saitama Prefecture Sayama Police arrested Kodai Furukawa, 26, an elementary school teacher, on suspicion of indecent assault. Furukawa was suspected of committing indecent acts, such as touching a girl in the lower grades, in a classroom at the public elementary school where he worked. Furukawa denied some of the allegations, saying, ‘I have touched girls at school in the past, but I don’t remember this case.

In early December 2013, a guardian of another girl, Ms. A, who was a student of Furukawa’s, called the Sexual Crimes Hotline to report that her daughter had been sexually victimized. A reporter from the Social Affairs Department continued, “The guardian of Ms. A told us, ‘My child has been sexually victimized.

The school investigated the matter and found that the defendant’s daughter had been sexually abused by a teacher.

The school proceeded to investigate, and found that the teacher had committed an indecent act on another victim girl. The parents of the girl reported the incident to the Sayama Police Department on the 17th of the same month, leading to her arrest. Since there were several reports from students at the school that they had been subjected to indecent acts by Mr. Furukawa, the Sayama Police Department suspected that there were additional crimes and proceeded with the investigation.

On April 23, Furukawa’s first trial was held at the Kawagoe Branch of the Saitama District Court and concluded on the same day.

In addition to Mr. A, Furukawa was also investigated for indecent conduct toward the girl who led to his arrest and another girl, but he had reached settlements with both of them. Therefore, at trial, he was charged with non-consensual indecency against Ms. A.

According to the indictment and opening statement read by the prosecutor, the incident occurred during a math class when the children were solving problems individually. Furukawa went to Ms. A, who raised her hand when she had a problem, squatted down beside her, and while teaching her, put her hand inside her skirt and touched her thigh.

Furukawa admitted the crime , saying, “There is no doubt about it.

What is the motive for “not for the purpose of obscenity”?

The prosecutor read out a statement from Ms. A’s mother during the trial, in which she described how she came to know about her daughter’s victimization.

In December 2013, when we were watching TV as a family, the news came on that I had been arrested for indecent acts. When I explained to my daughter what obscene acts meant, she confided in me that ‘Mr. Furukawa had done something obscene to her.

Ms. A then told me that Furukawa put her hand inside her skirt and touched her thigh during class, and she called the Sexual Crimes Victim Consultation Dial for advice.

In her statement, Ms. A’s mother said, “Please punish Mr. Furukawa severely. I hope he will never have contact with my child again,” she said angrily.

Furukawa admitted that he touched Ms. A, but as he stated at the beginning of his statement, he did not do so for the purpose of indecency, and explained his feelings at the time.

He explained his feelings at the time: “I was inexperienced as a teacher, and I was having a hard time managing the class, so I felt a strong sense of urgency to do something about it. But at the time, I couldn’t talk to anyone about it, so I kept feeling alone and impatient, and my perspective became narrower and narrower.

I thought that if I could just get closer to my children and make friends with them, I could get by, so I tried to be skin-to-skin with them. But I think it was a mistake to touch their thighs.”

At the time of the incident, he was stressed because “even on days off, if I saw something, I wondered if I could use it in class, or what would happen if I told the kids at school, and I rarely had a chance to think about anything outside of school. He then claimed that he learned from a trusted senior teacher to “keep a reasonable distance from students,” and that these days he did not touch his students unnecessarily.

He then reflected on his response to an investigation by the Saitama Prefectural Board of Education that he did not remember (having touched Mr. A’s body), saying, “If I admitted ( that I had touched him), I would have admitted it.

“I felt that if I admitted (that I had touched her), I would not be able to continue teaching, so I said, ‘I don’t remember, I didn’t do it.'”

There were no extenuating circumstances to his motive.”

He also explained that he had stated during the police interrogation that his motive was “I wanted to feel a thrill.

During the interrogation, I told the police that I was under stress from work, that I was trying to get close to my students through skinship, and other motives like the ones I have explained so far. But the police were not convinced, and I thought, ‘Well, that’s not true. Then the police told me, “Maybe you felt a thrill or something.” I thought to myself, “Sure, touching a thigh would normally make me nervous. So I thought maybe the thrill was the motive at the time, and I signed the papers.”

Furukawa, who is currently out on bail, has been going to a psychosomatic clinic. He was diagnosed there as not having “sexual preference disorder,” but he continues to go to the clinic to change his attitude toward stress and how he deals with it.

According to Furukawa, the elementary school he worked at has dismissed him on disciplinary grounds, and he stated the following about his future.

He said, “I am going to get out of the business of working with children. But I would like to do a job where I can relate to people and support them.”

At the sentencing hearing held on the same day, the prosecutor requested a sentence of two years in prison onthe grounds that the defendant “took advantage of his position as a teacher and was despicable and malicious,” and that “he committed this crime to enjoy the thrill of the possibility that others might find out about it, and there are no extenuating circumstances for his motive.

On the other hand, the defense attorney argued that “the defendant was in such a hurry to establish a relationship of trust that he went too far with the skinship. He stated that a suspended sentence was appropriate because the defendant has continued to go to medical facilities and because the defendant’s father lives with the defendant and provides supervision and support.

Mr. A was said to have been a student in the class who was fond of Furukawa, who would climb onto his lap. But did he really think that the act of touching her thighs would make them “like friends”?

During the defendant’s questioning, when asked by Judge Richi Kataoka if he had ever put his hand up a female student’s skirt in front of other people watching, Furukawa answered, “No.”

When Judge Kataoka asked again, “If it was for the purpose of skinship, why not do it openly?” he replied, ” It was not strange for them to see. At the very least, he must have known that it was an act that should not be done in a dignified manner.

The verdict is scheduled to be handed down on April 30.