Police arrest parents over confinement of daughter with disabilities

TOKYO — Tokyo police on Tuesday arrested the parents of a teenage girl with intellectual disabilities on suspicion of confining her in a storage space at their home while restraining her with metal fittings, investigative sources said.

With her two elder brothers also facing similar charges, police are looking into whether the family had abused the girl physically on a regular basis. They have found signs on the girl's body indicating past abuse, such as a broken bone that has since healed, the sources said.

The girl's mother, who is in her 40s, told police before being arrested that she sought to teach the girl "manners," while her father, also in his 40s, has denied conspiring in the act, the sources said.

Inside the storage space, the girl had been locked in an area measuring 172 centimeters wide, 82 cm high and 80 cm deep. The confinement alleged in the parents' arrest occurred at the family's home in Machida, Tokyo, in late January.

The mother called an ambulance on Jan 28 after her daughter's body temperature became abnormally low. The doctor who examined her at the time suspected physical abuse and asked the fire department to contact police, according to the sources.

When she was taken into protective care, the girl weighed under 40 kilograms and was found to be malnourished. Though she was of junior high school age, she had barely gone to school, according to the sources.

© KYODO