<figure id="attachment_475605" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 1535px;" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-475605"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="dcc6c970"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2026/07/237e37f0b31f70f21bb8af0c81a33910.png" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-475605" class="wp-caption-text">A shocking incident occurred at a child consultation center—a facility that is supposed to protect children. (Image is for illustrative purposes.)</figcaption></figure>
<h3> A child in the facility had sex with a staff member</h3>
“I was threatened.”
The 29-year-old former child consultation center employee who engaged in sexual activity with a girl in the facility repeatedly used those words during his trial. What exactly happened that led an employee whose role was to protect children to claim that he had been threatened?
Ryuichi Shimizu, 29, a former child consultation center employee, was charged with non-consensual sexual intercourse and related offenses involving A, who was under 16 at the time and had been under the center’s protection. On June 24, 2026, the Saitama District Court sentenced him to three years and 10 months in prison under the detention sentence system, against a prosecution demand of five years. By July 9, Shimizu had not appealed, and the sentence had become final.
Shimizu was arrested by the Saitama Prefectural Police on February 19, 2026, on suspicion of non-consensual sexual intercourse and related offenses.
The incident came to light after the child consultation center where he worked reported that a child staying at the facility had sex with a staff member. In December of the previous year, Shimizu allegedly entered A’s room on three occasions and engaged in sexual acts with her. During an internal investigation by the child consultation center, he denied the allegations, saying “I didn’t do it,” but after his arrest, he admitted to the allegations, stating, “There’s no mistake about it.” Shimizu was indicted on March 11.
The fact that an employee of a child consultation center had engaged in sexual activity with a girl under the center’s protection prompted the Saitama Prefectural Government to take action.
“On March 24, Saitama Prefecture announced that it had dismissed Shimizu as a disciplinary measure. In response to the incident, three male employees at the child consultation center, including its director, who was Shimizu’s supervisor, each received disciplinary reprimands. The prefecture stated that it would thoroughly enforce discipline to prevent misconduct that could cause people to lose trust in the institution.” (National newspaper social affairs reporter)
Shimizu had reportedly been working at the center since October 2024 and was responsible for providing A with guidance and supervision in her daily life. A was said to have had feelings for Shimizu. According to the indictment and opening statements, the incident came to light after another employee overheard a conversation between A and a friend. In a statement read aloud by the prosecutor, the employee testified as follows:
“This morning, during a conversation between A and another child, I heard the following exchange: ‘Do you still like Mr. Shimizu?’ ‘Yes. I did something sexual with Mr. Shimizu. We took a picture together.’ That child then asked me, ‘What do you think of him as a person?’”
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead="The “night of the incident” as described by the defendant"></div>
<h3>She hugged me</h3>
What happened on the day of the incident?
According to Shimizu’s testimony in court, when he first entered A’s room on November 29, 2025, there had been an incident involving graffiti found on a wall at the child consultation center. Although it was clear that four or five children had drawn it, A was the only one who was reprimanded that day. Shimizu said he felt sympathy for her. Then, at around 9 p.m. that night, A came to Shimizu, who was working the night shift, and asked him, “I want you to listen to me in my room.”
“She looked deeply troubled and said, ‘I can’t sleep, so I want you to listen to me.’ Since there had also been the graffiti incident earlier that day, I ended up going into her room to listen to her. That day, we had a serious conversation about the graffiti, A’s life at the facility, her dreams for the future, and things like that.”
However, at this child consultation center, male employees were not permitted to enter girls’ rooms after bedtime. Even in an emergency, there were rules requiring the door to be left open and at least two staff members to enter together. At this point, Shimizu had already violated the rules.
On December 3, A again came to Shimizu while he was working the night shift.
“She said, ‘I want you to listen to me,’ so I told her that we had already finished talking. Then she said, ‘If you don’t do what I say, I’ll tell everyone about what happened last time you came into my room.’ So I listened to her. I thought that if I got caught and she said, ‘He invited me,’ I would be the one at fault, and I became frightened.”
Shimizu then entered A’s room, where, he said, she hugged him.
“I told her, ‘Please don’t do that,’ and she said, ‘Then I’ll tell them.’ I thought she might be joking, but if she started shouting loudly right there, there was no question that I would be blamed, so I felt I had no choice but to do what she said.”
Shimizu explained, “At that point, I became sexually aroused and ended up engaging in sexual acts.”
He testified, his voice apparently trembling with tension, that he again complied with her demands in the same manner during the third incident. On that occasion, Shimizu took photographs of A. He explained the reason for doing so as follows.
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead="The reason I took the photo was"></div>
<h3>&#8220;Are you trying to say that she was at fault?&#8221;</h3>
“I took a photo of A’s face, but I thought that if I took a photo of her looking happy, it might serve as evidence that I hadn’t engaged in sexual acts with A against her will.”
However, when the prosecutor asked, “Given A’s age, and the fact that you were a child consultation center employee while she was a child under the center’s protection, didn’t you think that it would be wrong even if she consented?” Shimizu answered, “I did.”
He said he later deleted the photographs of A after calming down and realizing that if someone else saw them, I wouldn’t have any excuse.
During the trial, Shimizu repeatedly said, as noted earlier, that “A threatened me” and that he had been threatened. But when the prosecutor asked, “From the way you’re describing it, are you trying to say that she was at fault?” Shimizu answered, “No.”
However, it seems possible that Shimizu thought that taking a photograph of A’s face as evidence that “I did not engage in sexual acts with her against her will” and portraying the situation as “I simply responded to A’s advances” might somehow reduce his culpability, even if only slightly.
Shimizu knew not only A’s age but also all about the family circumstances that had led to her being placed under the center’s protection. Having engaged in the acts despite knowing all of this, he could hardly avoid being accused of abandoning the responsibilities expected of a child consultation center employee.
In the statement given by a child consultation center employee and read aloud by the prosecutor, the employee’s anger toward Shimizu was expressed as follows:
“This kind of conduct is a betrayal of the children, and it can only be described as an abuse of power. A person responsible for supervising children under protection has committed an act of abuse. I want him to properly take responsibility and atone for his crime.”
After prosecutors sought a sentence of five years in prison under the detention sentence system, Shimizu twisted his face and appeared on the verge of tears as he stared at his relatives sitting in the public gallery.
However, when Presiding Judge Inoshitada handed down a sentence of three years and 10 months in prison under the detention sentence system at the sentencing hearing and told him, “You will return to society before too long. When that time comes, please use what you have learned from this incident to start your life over,” Shimizu left the courtroom without changing his expression.
Perhaps he had already resigned himself to receiving a prison sentence. There was no emotion that could be discerned from his expression.

 Ryo Nakahira

 A prison sentence has been finalized for a 29-year-old former child welfare agency employee who engaged in sexual acts with a girl under the age of 16 who was in the agency’s care. During the trial, the former employee repeatedly testified that he was “threatened” as the reason for the crime. What exactly happened at the facility?

“I Had Sex With My Teacher”: The Courtroom Testimony Behind a Child Welfare Worker’s Sexual Abuse of a Girl in His Care

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