<figure id="attachment_467469" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-467469" style="width: 3623px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="cc71a568"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2026/05/22fcba07fbfa032710dfd31344e7a60d.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-467469" class="wp-caption-text">A 47-year-old defendant accused of having non-consensual sexual intercourse with a 15-year-old junior high school girl will be sentenced on May 19&#8230;</figcaption></figure>
<h3> &#8220;I took a junior high school girl to my house.</h3>
 I was prepared for the possibility of being caught by the police.
 The 47-year-old man who called a junior high school girl, A (15 years old at the time), whom he met on SNS, to his home and engaged in sexual intercourse with her, stated in court that he was &#8220;prepared&#8221; for this.
 On January 20, 2014, Saitama Prefectural Police Honjo Police arrested Tsuyoshi Kato, 47, a part-time worker at a car rental store, on charges of non-consensual sexual intercourse. Kato was suspected of having sexual intercourse with Ms. A, a Tokyo resident, at her home in November 2013, knowing that she was under 16 years old. Kato has one previous violation of the Youth Fostering Ordinance,&#8221; said a reporter from the society section of a national newspaper.
 On May 19, Kato will be sentenced at the Kumagaya Branch of the Saitama District Court. We would like to review the details of the case from the April 21 initial trial, which concluded on the same day, to find out why Kato committed the crimes he did.
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 The indictment and opening statement read by the prosecutor at the first trial revealed that the defendant committed the despicable crime by taking advantage of the junior high school girl&#8217;s immature judgment.
 Kato met Ms. A through X (formerly Twitter) around May or June of 2013. Thereafter, he continued to communicate with Ms. A through X and LINE, and from the fact that Ms. A had written that she was a junior high school student in her self-introduction column and from the content of their correspondence, it appears that he recognized that Ms. A was a 15-year-old junior high school girl.
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 In early November, Kato and Ms. A met for the first time, and he engaged in sexual intercourse with Ms. A at her home, while at the same time filming her on his smartphone. At that time, he did not use contraception and gave Ms. A a pill after sexual intercourse , telling her to &#8220;take this as soon as possible.
 The next day, when a school nurse was concerned about her crying in front of the infirmary at her junior high school, she told him that she had had sexual intercourse with someone she met on the Internet, and he consulted the Metropolitan Police Department. The case was brought to light, and Kato was charged with non-consensual sexual intercourse, photographing sexual acts, and violation of the Child Pornography Law. At trial, he admitted his guilt , saying, &#8220;There is no doubt about it.
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" Claimed to be &quot;fiancee.&quot;"></div>
<h3>I was going to take responsibility if I got pregnant.&#8221;</h3>
 When Ms. A met Mr. Kato at X in May or June, she was mentally unstable. Kato, who said that &#8220;two years younger than Ms. A, we could talk better together,&#8221; told Ms. A, who was in an unstable state, that he &#8220;talked about anime he liked, listened to her worries about school and her friends, and told her that it was fate (that they met). In September, he asked her to go out with him on the premise of marriage, and she agreed. Therefore, defendant Kato claimed that Ms. A was his &#8220;fiancee.
 On the other hand, Ms. A stated during the interrogation that she did not know much about marriage, so she was just talking about it in an appropriate manner.
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 However, in claiming to be her &#8220;fiancée,&#8221; Ms. Kato was too self-serving in many of her statements.
 For example, Kato concealed his age from Ms. A, explaining it in this way.
 I thought that if I told her my age from the beginning, she would not like me, so I thought I would go out with her for six months to a year and disclose my age only after we had developed a relationship of trust. And if they didn&#8217;t like me there, I thought I would just give up.&#8221;
 When asked by the defense attorney, &#8220;Isn&#8217;t it partly because Mr. A&#8217;s parents are against it?&#8221; I answered, &#8220;Oh, there is that, too. In fact, it was also revealed that he had instructed Ms. A not to tell her parents and to erase the LINE communication frequently so that others would not find out.
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 Regarding the fact that her life was unstable even though she was considering &#8220;marriage,&#8221; she stated, &#8220;I wasn&#8217;t planning on living like this for a long time; I was looking for a regular job.
 He then used the term &#8220;serious relationship&#8221; to describe their unprotected sexual intercourse, and during the interrogation he stated, &#8220;The reason we didn&#8217;t use contraception was to check how serious we were about each other. Since it was a serious relationship, I was going to take responsibility if I got pregnant.
 At the trial, however, she stated that she had changed her mind.
 I thought we could confirm our love for each other by not using contraception. But when I thought about making my partner uneasy and wondering if I could really take responsibility for my actions, I realized that I was wrong.&#8221;
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" The judge pointed out that &quot;preparedness&quot; is cheap."></div>
<h3>Is that a habit of yours?&#8221;</h3>
 In his closing argument, the prosecutor requested a five-year sentence of confinement on the grounds that &#8220;it is recognized that the defendant used the victim as a sexual outlet, and there is no room for extenuating circumstances for his selfish and self-centered motives.
 On the other hand, defense counsel stated, &#8220;The defendant deeply regrets that he was self-centered and had no regard for the victim&#8217;s feelings,&#8221; and requested a &#8220;suspended sentence&#8221;because &#8220;a settlement has been reached&#8221; and &#8220;the family&#8217;s supervision and support can be expected in the future.
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 During the trial, whenever the prosecutor or the judge pointed out his overly self-serving excuses, Kato would belittle himself, repeating the words, &#8221; I was immature&#8221; and &#8220;I was a fool.
 On the other hand, he often used the word &#8220;resolve,&#8221; as mentioned at the beginning of this report, and stated that he borrowed money from his own mother, whom he had not seen for about 20 years, because he was &#8220;prepared&#8221; to go to jail. The following exchange took place with Chief Judge Naoto Sasaki concerning Kato&#8217;s use of the word &#8220;preparedness.
 Judge Sasaki: &#8220;Is it a habit of yours to use the word &#8216;preparedness&#8217;?
 Defendant Kato: &#8220;Maybe.
 Judge Sasaki: &#8220;I think you use the word &#8216;preparedness&#8217; a lot, but you don&#8217;t seem to be prepared for it.
 Defendant Kato: &#8220;&#8230;&#8230; Yes.
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 He unilaterally declared a 15-year-old girl, who was mentally and physically immature and unstable, his &#8220;fiancee,&#8221; while not revealing his own age and telling her parents not to tell anyone. Furthermore, in order to &#8220;check her seriousness,&#8221; he had sexual intercourse with her without using contraception.
 How will the judiciary judge Kato&#8217;s &#8220;determination&#8221;?

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 Nakahira Ryo

 A 47-year-old man was accused of having sexual intercourse with a 15-year-old junior high school girl he met on a social networking service. What did he say at the trial? The judge also pointed out that he was too cheap to be "prepared.

The 47-year-old defendant, who had unprotected, non-consensual sex with a 15-year-old girl, was too cheap to &#8220;take responsibility&#8221; if she got pregnant.

The 47-year-old defendant, who had unprotected, non-consensual sex with a 15-year-old girl, was too cheap to “take responsibility” if she got pregnant.

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