TOKYO, March 6 — A Japanese film director was jailed for eight years Friday over the sexual assault of two women actors, a court spokesman and media reports said.
Hideo Sakaki, 55, was accused of assaulting the women separately – in 2015 and 2016 when they were in their 20s – under the pretence of “acting instruction”, Kyodo news and other media reported.
Sakaki’s film Confession was pulled following the accusations in 2022, part of a string of sexual abuse allegations to hit Japan’s film and television industry.
The Tokyo district court “sentenced the defendant to eight years in prison”, a court spokesman told AFP.
Sakaki – also an actor whose best known films in Japan include horror flick Versus and sci-fi movie Alive – pleaded not guilty and appealed the Friday ruling, public broadcaster NHK reported.
The presiding judge said that one of the women’s “testimony that she was suddenly assaulted during an acting rehearsal and had not consented at all is credible,” NHK said.
“It would have been extremely difficult for her to resist.”
“This is a malicious and despicable crime that exploited the power imbalance between director and actor and gravely violated the women’s sexual autonomy,” the judge said, according to NHK.
Despite several high-profile cases, Japan has never seen an outpouring of #MeToo allegations.
#MeToo campaigner Shiori Ito won a landmark 2019 civil case against a Japanese TV reporter accused of raping her – a charge he denies – and turned her ordeal into a film released last year and screened worldwide.
She received vicious online criticism for going public.
Sakaki also appeared in Still The Water, which featured at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival. — AFP
