Nagoya District Court sentenced former teacher from Okayama to 5 years in prison due to hidden camera image sharing group

The trial of a 28-year-old former teacher at Bizen City Elementary School in Okayama Prefecture, who was charged with violating the Act Prohibiting Child Prostitution and Child Pornography in an incident involving a group of teachers sharing secretly photographed images of girls, was held at the Nagoya District Court on the 10th. The prosecutor's office requested a five-year prison term, saying, ``He treats children not as students but as objects of sexual desire, and his vileness and viciousness are beyond description.'' The defense requested a suspended sentence at the conclusion of the trial. The verdict is scheduled for December 17th.

According to prosecutors' arguments, in 2025, the man secretly filmed seven girls changing clothes at the elementary school where he worked, shared some of the data on social media, and also put bodily fluids on the girls' toothbrushes and cups.

In their argument, prosecutors said that the man had installed a clock-shaped camera similar to the one used for voyeurism by a person he met on social media, and was extracting the video data at night. ``The man had taken measures to prevent the crime from being discovered, and it was clever and deliberate.'' The school accused him of continuing to secretly film himself even after learning of the arrest of other teachers in June last year, saying, ``His sense of norms has become extremely dull, and his distorted sexual love and obsession with girls is deep-rooted.''

The defense argued that they had reached a settlement with some of the victims and that they were also attending counseling.

A total of seven elementary and junior high school teachers from five prefectures participated in the group. All six people except the man have been found guilty.