After a three-and-a-half-hour interrogation, police officers wore down a 12-year-old girl and got her to “confess” to sexual-related allegations that proved false.

Closed-door interrogations of suspects by police and prosecutors in Japan have long been under fire by human rights advocates and lawyers.

And although improvements in transparency have been made in such questioning, the case in Hyogo Prefecture shows that investigators still rely heavily on confessions to make their case, even from a sixth-year elementary school girl.

At the end of February 2024, a mother, 51, received a phone call from Hyogo prefectural police and was told to bring her daughter to a police station.

The mother asked for the reason, but the officer said, “We can’t tell you now.”

Her daughter also had no idea why police would want to talk to her.

But the mother said she told her daughter, “I think something important has happened, so speak honestly.”

When they arrived at the police station at around 4 p.m., a female officer took the daughter to a small room while the mother was brought to another room.

Police finally told the mother what was going on: “Your daughter touched her male classmate’s genitals more than 10 times with a group of students.”

‘I DIDN’T DO IT’

The girl was questioned in the small room for three and a half hours until around 8 p.m.

“Did you do such a thing?” the mother asked her daughter on their way home.

The daughter replied, “I didn’t do it.”

The next day, the mother visited a legal counseling center operated by a bar association.

A lawyer there told her that the investigation into the daughter was likely on suspicion of indecent assault. However, under the law, children under the age of 14 cannot be charged with a crime, the lawyer said.

But the lawyer advised the mother to learn details about how police questioned her daughter.

The girl explained the interrogation to her mother after she came home.

The police officer in charge kept asking her if she was having problems at school, the girl said.

The officer then became more specific, asking if she had touched her classmate’s genitals during a school trip in October 2023 and over several breaks between classes in November and December that year.

She said she did not remember ever committing such acts.

So, she repeatedly replied: “I don’t know. I don’t remember.”

Then, she remembered a moment when she hit a classmate’s crotch during a game of tag, and she explained the incident to the police officer.

“Do you remember something else?” the officer asked. “There is no way you don’t remember.”

VICTIM’S STATEMENT IN DOUBT

Near the end of the interrogation, the daughter was told to write about what she had done and what she thought about her actions.

“During the school trip and during school break times in the early November and December, I touched my classmate’s genitals,” she wrote. “I feel sorry, and I want to apologize.”

She signed and applied her fingerprint to the paper at the officer’s instructions.

Why would she admit to allegations that she knew nothing about?

“No matter how much I explained, they just told me to remember. I wanted to go home but I wasn’t allowed to. And I thought, ‘Maybe I forgot and I’m the one who should be blamed for forgetting,’” she said.

The mother and her husband visited the police station again and demanded a retraction of their daughter’s confession.

The officer’s response caused further confusion. “We are starting to doubt the victim’s report.”

REFUSED TO RETRACT ‘CONFESSION’

In the month after the interrogation, police explained to the family: “The victim’s report, saying he had been touched more than 10 times in the classroom, was false.”

The parents protested the way that they and their daughter had been treated by the police station.

Six photos of the girl were taken toward the end of the questioning, and police said they would delete the pictures.

However, an officer said the questioning was “not illegal” and refused to retract the confession.

The questioning of the girl occurred during the final stages of the high-profile case of Iwao Hakamata, a former death row inmate who was convicted of multiple murders in the 1960s after “confessing” during brutal interrogations.

Hakamata, now 89, who spent decades behind bars, was found not guilty in a retrial in autumn last year.

“I understand how he feels,” the daughter said after watching a special TV program about Hakamata.

Hyogo prefectural police acknowledged to The Asahi Shimbun that they had investigated a sixth-grader but refrained from commenting on the appropriateness of their investigative methods.

VULNERABLE SUSPECTS

Juveniles and people with intellectual disabilities are considered “vulnerable” when giving statements to police. They may have difficulties clearly expressing their thoughts and could simply repeat what the interrogators say.

The National Public Safety Commission’s regulations stipulate that police should be cautious about their words and actions when investigating juveniles under 14 to avoid causing unnecessary nervousness or anxiety among the children.

The regulations also stipulate that long-term questioning should be avoided.

However, these regulations lack specific standards for determining what is considered wrongful, according to Yuri Kawamura, a lawyer with expertise in investigations into juveniles under the age of 14.

She said the case in Hyogo Prefecture was problematic.

“If an elementary school student is questioned while being separated from their parents for three hours, it is natural that they will feel nervous and anxious. This could lead to a false confession,” she said.

Akira Kyo, a professor at Kwansei Gakuin University specializing in criminal law, said retrials that acquitted defendants showed the existence of adults who may be weak during interrogations.

“However, the susceptibility of juveniles under 14, who tend to accept what police tell them to say, has not been highlighted,” Kyo said.

This is because those juveniles are not subject to public trials, making it difficult for such issues to be disclosed.

If a child under 14 is forced to make a false statement about a suspected accomplice in a crime, that person, whether minor or adult, could face criminal charges.

“Even if they do not receive any criminal punishment, this is just as problematic as a false arrest of an adult,” Kyo said.

Kawamura offered advice to parents.

“If you happen to be in a situation where your child will be questioned by police, you should consult with a lawyer first,” she said.

Kawamura says lawyers can be present during questioning, and they can ask for improvements on how the child is treated.