The vice speaker of a city assembly in central Japan handed in his resignation to the assembly office on Friday after allegedly sexually harassing the daughter of an Australian mayor at a party last month, the office said.
Norio Nagata of the Minokamo city assembly in Gifu Prefecture decided to quit the post after the city's mayor Hiroto Fujii sent an apology email to its sister-city Dubbo in New South Wales late last month.
Mathew Dickerson, the mayor of Dubbo, visited the Japanese city with his family and city officials in April and attended a welcome reception on April 3.
At an afterparty, the 71-year-old Nagata, who was accompanied by Dickerson's family, was singing karaoke in a bar when he held the microphone close to the lower body of the mayor's daughter, who is in her 20s.
Nagata said earlier this week that he wanted to set the mood for the party and had no intention of doing anything wrong but regrets his actions.
The Minokamo city took his action as inappropriate, yet Nagata will not resign as an assembly member.
"My daughter was surprised at the time and the three of us (including his wife) exchanged glances at what was an inappropriate gesture," Dickerson said in an email sent to Kyodo News. "We discussed it briefly the next day, but the issue was not of a serious enough nature to warrant any further action."
The Dubbo mayor said he "would like to formally acknowledge and accept the apology" from the mayor of Minokamo.
