By KAZUHIRO FUJITANI/ Staff Writer
March 26, 2022 at 16:02 JST
CHIBA--The district court here handed a 14-year prison sentence to a truck driver who killed two young children and injured three others while driving drunk.
The Chiba District Court found Hiroshi Umezawa, 61, guilty of dangerous driving resulting in death and injury.
In handing down the sentence, the court said, “The defendant’s attitude toward driving was the worst imaginable and he deserves severe punishment.”
According to the ruling, Umezawa drank shortly before he began driving and fell asleep at the wheel around 3:20 p.m. on June 28, 2021, in Yachimata, Chiba Prefecture.
The truck hit five children returning home from school. Yuto Tanii, 8, and Kaito Kawasome, 7, died at the scene. A 9-year-old girl was initially listed in critical condition due to a fractured skull. Although she recovered, she still suffers from brain function impairment. Two other children also suffered serious injuries.
Although Umezawa drove a truck for a living, the court found that he began drinking on the job from around 2020 due in large part to stress.
The court said the defendant frequently drank before driving home or returning to the company where he worked.
When a customer complained that Umezawa reeked of booze, his superior cautioned him, but that did not stop him from drinking on the job.
On the day of the accident, Umezawa knew he would be driving through an area where school children were returning home as he headed back to the company. He quaffed about 220 milliliters of shochu when he parked at an expressway stop about 30 minutes before the accident.
The court said Umezawa never reflected on the dangers of driving while under the influence.
While the defendant did express remorse over the deaths during the trial, the district court only knocked one year off the 15-year term sought by prosecutors because it determined that there was little room for extenuating circumstances, given the egregious nature of the crime.
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Police investigators at the scene of the drunk driving incident in Yachimata, Chiba Prefecture (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
