NAGOYA — The Nagoya District Court on Thursday sentenced a 33-year-old former lecturer at a junior high school in Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture, to two years and six months in prison for secretly filming female students and producing child pornography, among other charges. The prosecution had sought three years and six months. Presiding Judge Mayuko Nishiwaki said the defendant "damaged trust in teachers, and the consequences are serious."
The court found that the man filmed girls changing in the locker rooms of his current and former schools between 2023 and 2025, using a watch-type camera. He also provided 98 video files in total to seven people, including members of a group of teachers he had met through social media and with whom he shared secretly filmed images of girls.
Cameras in a pool changing room
The court said he produced 52 child pornography videos and that 49 students were victims. It noted that he had placed a camera in a pool changing room he was responsible for managing, and called his conduct "an abuse of his position, and cunning and malicious."
The judge also criticized his motive for sharing the videos, including selling some of them, saying he did so "to satisfy a desire for profit and for approval, and the motive is selfish." The court concluded that a prison term was unavoidable even after taking into account that settlements had been reached with some of the victims.
Seven teachers from across Japan belonged to the group, and guilty verdicts against six of them have been finalized. The man was not a member of the group.
The digital edition withheld the defendant's name out of consideration for the victims.