Officer pinched for peaking [sic] up girl's dressOSAKA -- A police sergeant will face charges after he used a small digital camera to photograph up a girl’s dress while she visited a police box in Takarazuka, Hyogo Prefecture, to report a theft, it was learned Wednesday.
Hyogo police are preparing to send to prosecutors documents accusing the 42-year-old sergeant at Takarazuka Police Station of breaking a Hyogo Prefectural Government ordinance forbidding people from creating a public nuisance.
The policeman, whose name has not been disclosed, has admitted to shooting up the girl’s skirt and is apparently remorseful over his actions.
Hyogo Prefectural Police, however, are furious.
“We regard this matter with the utmost seriousness and will treat it in the most stern way,” Nobuyuki Kishimoto, Hyogo Prefectural Police internal affairs spokesman, said.
“We are so upset that we don’t know the appropriate words to apologize to the people of Takarazuka,” said Takarazuka Police Station chief Satoru Yamauchi.
Police said that early this month, the girl in her teens turned up at a police box in Takarazuka where the sergeant was posted to report that her bicycle had been stolen. While she was there, the sergeant, suspecting the girl would not notice, used his digital camera to take a photo up her skirt.
However, the girl saw the flash of the camera and reported the incident to prefectural police the following day.
Takarazuka Police Station has badly tarnished its crime-fighting reputation in a number of incidents this year. In January, a sergeant was sacked after his arrest for raping and hurting a schoolgirl. The following month, another sergeant was given a pay cut after he bashed a railway employee, while in June an assistant inspector was suspended for one month when he was found to be driving while intoxicated.
(Mainichi and wire reports, Japan, Aug. 13, 2003)