(Pool photo)
CHIBA, Japan - A man on Friday admitted to charges that he assaulted his 10-year-old daughter, who died in January last year in Chiba Prefecture, east of Tokyo, but has denied some of the claims leveled against him.
"I never starved her or weakened her. Neither did I keep her standing, or shower her with cold water," Yuichiro Kurihara, 42, said of daughter Mia in the first hearing at the Chiba District Court of the high-profile child abuse case.
However, the father expressed "deep remorse," saying, "What I have done to my daughter is beyond the scope of the discipline. I was looking forward to seeing her future, but I, myself, made that impossible to happen."
Kurihara was indicted last March for causing Mia's death by depriving her of sleep and nutrition, as well as forcing her to stand in a bathroom while he showered cold water on her, between Jan. 22 and 24 that year.
The girl was found dead in the bathroom of their home in Noda on Jan. 24.
Kurihara also faces charges of physically abusing the girl from December 2018 to January 2019 and beating his 33-year-old wife, Nagisa.
"He repeatedly abused Mia when he had something that disturbed him and relieved his stress by doing so. Ultimately she died due to daily and continuous abuse," a prosecutor said. Kurihara was upset by the fact that Mia had grown up while they were living apart after he and his wife divorced, the prosecutor said.
"We mainly admit the charges," said the defendant's lawyer, but he denied some of the claims, saying that "Although the defendant's acts went too far, the abuse was not on a daily basis."
The questioning of the defendant will be held from March 4 to 6, and a ruling is expected on March 19.
Last June, the court sentenced Nagisa to 30 months in prison, suspended for five years with probation, for complicity in her husband's treatment of Mia.
When handing down the ruling, the court said it was difficult for Nagisa to resist her husband due to his abuse and her mental condition.
The case attracted international attention, with problems uncovered in the way a child welfare center, her school and other local authorities responded to Mia's repeated pleas for help.
In November 2017, Mia wrote in a school questionnaire that she was being bullied by her father and was subsequently taken into protective custody for seven weeks. But a local education board was found to have given the father a copy of Mia's questionnaire.
After her protective custody ended, with the welfare center approving her return to her parents, no visits were paid to her home by officials of either the center or the school to check on her welfare.
A member of the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child said in February last year that the case demonstrated a crucial lack of responsibility on the part of the adults involved.
A government project team reviewing the response of the welfare center and the school concluded last June that the Kashiwa child welfare center's assessment of her abuse risk was inadequate.
The joint team of the welfare and education ministries said the center's decision to end the protective custody of Mia in December 2017 was based on "insufficient investigations," and it failed to effectively use assessment tools or evaluate the impact of spousal abuse.
To prevent a recurrence, it has called for strengthening cooperation with spousal violence counseling and support centers, promoting the assignment of police personnel and retired officers to child welfare centers and sharing information among authorities on children who are absent from school for a week or longer.
Japan's parliament amended a law last June to strengthen the ability of child welfare centers to "intervene" in abuse cases by separating staff members in charge of taking children into protective custody from those dealing with their guardians.
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