Hirakata city received five reports of suspected abuse about Erena Kanao before the 3-year-old was beaten to death, but none of the warnings reached Osaka prefectural police in time, the city disclosed on the 13th, Sankei Shimbun reported.
The child welfare center took no steps such as temporary protective custody, and no information was shared with the prefectural police. The case was not prevented.
The reports arrived between July last year and July 21 this year. City staff met the parents and offered advice and guidance after each one.
Bruises found, but no judgment on violence
A judicial autopsy found several dozen bruises across Erena's body. When city staff examined her after the July 21 report, they found two bruises on her face.
They questioned her father, Kentaro Kanao, 33, but he denied assaulting her. The city says it could not determine whether the bruises came from violence.
Reports arrived in both June and July. The city was arranging a meeting with the Osaka Prefectural Central Child and Family Center, a child welfare center, when the killing took place.
Erena was assaulted on August 2 and died the following day, according to the account.
Monthly batches, not real-time alerts
Osaka prefecture shares every case the child welfare center receives with the prefectural police. In this case the information was not shared until the killing had already happened.
The center compiles one month of cases and sends them to the police in a single batch the following month. Because it received the city's July 21 report, the case was due to be shared during August.
Urgent cases can be passed on individually by phone instead. A center official said staff had not judged that temporary protective custody was needed, and did not consider it a case that should be provided to police at any time.
The father was arrested on suspicion of murder and the mother on suspicion of abandoning a person responsible for care, causing death.
A gap seen before
This is not the first case to expose the hole in information sharing. In 2021, a 3-year-old boy died in Settsu, Osaka, after being sprayed with hot shower water.
Abuse reports had reached Settsu city before his death. Because the city, not the child welfare center, was handling the case, it fell outside the share-every-case system.
In the Hirakata case the problem was the lag before sharing. From April next year the system moves to real-time sharing, with data updated every hour once entered into a dedicated system.
Hirakata Mayor Takashi Fushimi said the city takes the case very seriously and will do everything it can to prevent a recurrence.