Photo/Illutration The Nagoya High Court finds a father guilty of raping his daughter and gives him a 10-year prison sentence on March 12. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

A father found guilty of “quasi-forcible intercourse” with his daughter and sentenced to 10 years in prison by the Nagoya High Court this month appealed the decision to the nation’s top court.

In the ruling on March 12, the high court convicted the 50-year-old defendant, overturning a lower court decision.

He appealed the ruling in papers dated March 14.

The man was indicted for sexually abusing his daughter on two occasions in Aichi Prefecture in August and September 2017, one of which occurred in a hotel.

The daughter was 19 at that time. The indictment said she was unable to put up resistance due to her psychological state following many years of abuse at the hands of her father.

The Nagoya District Court’s Okazaki branch acknowledged that the daughter did not consent to have sex with her father.

Even so, it found him not guilty on grounds there were reasonable doubts as to whether she was under the total control of her father physically and psychologically to put up resistance.

The ruling in March 2019 sparked a wave of protest rallies in light of similar verdicts that had been handed down across the nation. Prosecutors took the case to the high court.

In reversing the lower court decision, the high court concluded it was impossible for the victim to resist because of her father's domineering control.

Under revisions to the Criminal Law in 2017, the crime of quasi-forced sexual intercourse refers to cases in which sex is non-consensual and the victim is too incapacitated by drugs or alcohol or due to psychological factors to put up resistance.

Related News