Father who abused his eldest daughter to death was sentenced to 16 years in prison by the Tokyo High Court in the second trial.

A father accused of causing the death of his fourth-grade daughter by giving her a cold shower in Noda City, Chiba Prefecture, was sentenced to 16 years in prison by the Tokyo High Court in the second trial, an unusually heavy sentence following the first trial, on the grounds that "the maliciousness of the case is exceptional among abuse cases.

Yuichiro Kurihara, 43, of Noda City, Chiba Prefecture, was charged with manslaughter and other crimes for causing the death of his oldest daughter, Mia, then 10, in January of last year by taking a cold shower on her face.

In the first trial, the Chiba District Court sentenced the defendant to 16 years in prison, an unusually heavy sentence for a child abuse case, on the grounds that the crime was "unusually vicious," but in the second trial, the defendant's lawyer argued that the sentence was "too heavy and far outside the trend of severity of punishment.

In the second trial, Hiroko Kondo, the presiding judge of the Tokyo High Court, pointed out that "the fact that the defendant was forced to die after being subjected to unreasonable acts of abuse, such as being continuously bathed in cold water in the shower, was abominably cruel, and the viciousness of the abuse was extraordinary among abuse cases.

The court rejected the defendant's appeal and sentenced him to 16 years in prison, saying, "The first trial court's decision that the severity of the sentence should greatly exceed the past trend has a convincing basis.

The second trial, in which the case was heard only by a judge, also approved the decision of the jury trial in the first trial, which greatly exceeded the past trend

Source: https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20210304/k10012897061000.html