TOKYO, Dec 4 (NNN-NHK) – Three female teachers, who previously worked at a nursery school, in the central Japanese prefecture of Shizuoka, were arrested today, for repeatedly abusing infants in their care, local media reported.
The teachers were detained hours after police searched the private school, called Sakura Hoikuen, in Susono City, local reports said today.
This came, after the city’s Wednesday disclosure that the teachers were involved in 15 cases of abuse between Jun and Aug, including holding one-year-olds in their care upside down by their feet, forcibly removing their pants, and threatening them with knives, among other acts.
The three, who were among six teachers in charge of the one-year-olds’ class, but left the nursery school recently, admitted the abusive behaviour but claimed they were trying to discipline the children.
According to local reports, police will examine the records they have acquired, as they believe the abuse at the nursery was continuous. The school had forced all of its workers to sign an oath not to divulge what happened there, so the search was believed to be conducted by the police out of concern that the evidence may be destroyed.
Toshihiko Sakurai, the school’s head, was questioned and required to produce the work records of the three teachers, as part of a special audit that the municipal and prefectural governments began yesterday, said local officials.
The school had previously been asked by local officials in mid-Aug, to provide a detailed account of the abuse inflicted on each child, but the school, including its head, kept silent on the accusations for three months, informed sources said.
One father said, he was totally shocked by the revelations of abuse at his daughter’s school and that it was impossible to comprehend people carrying out such heinous acts.
He added that, he would not be able to sleep imagining that such abusive acts could have happened to his one-year-old daughter.
