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Murdered girl's father says Japan needs to change laws

"Because they [hostesses] are working illegally, they have no recourse to any legal help."

Tim Blackman, father of Lucie Blackman

The father of a British bar hostess who was raped and dismembered in Japan in 2000 warned yesterday that conditions persist for similar crimes to occur again, and demanded the maximum penalty for his daughter's alleged killer.

Tim Blackman, the father of Lucie Blackman, denounced accused murderer Joji Obara as a "disgusting creature" and "filthy animal" and said the "world" was demanding the "longest possible sentence."

The crime was especially egregious because of the lasting trauma to Lucie's brother and sister, the elder Blackman said in Tokyo after testifying at Obara's trial.

Her brother Rupert has failed years at university due to illness and "requires constant medication" to stabilize his ravaged emotions. Lucie's grief-stricken sister Sophie tried to commit suicide and is now committed to a psychiatric hospital, Blackman said.

"I and my children have been sentenced to a lifetime of grief and sorrow by these actions, have already served six years in this nightmare, and will only receive relief when death comes," Blackman said after testifying at Obara's trial.

Obara, a real estate developer, has been on trial on charges of rape resulting in death in Blackman's killing. Prosecutors say that he gave Blackman a fatal drug overdose in June 2000 before dismembering her body.

He also faces charges of fatally drugging and raping Carita Ridgway, an Australian woman who died in 1992, and is suspected in a string of other rapes. Obara has pleaded innocent to all the charges.

Blackman was working at a Tokyo night club when she disappeared, and had told a friend she was going on a drive to the ocean with a customer.

Blackman's father said yesterday that other women in Japan's night club scene are vulnerable to similar crimes or exploitation because the justice system does not provide a way for them to work legally on a short-term basis.

Many foreign women come to Japan hoping to make money as bar hostesses, but must work under-the-table on tourist visas without legal protections. Blackman, a former flight attendant, came to Japan in May 2000 and used her earnings to travel around Asia.

"Because they are working illegally, they have no recourse to any legal help," Blackman's father said. "The situation exists, I think, for these things to occur again."

His testimony also backed that of Blackman's mother, who said last week that Obama's lawyers attempted to pay the victim's family a large sum of money. He put the figure at £500,000 (US$891,000) and said it was meant to keep them "away from the court."
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