Ex-teacher given 2 years in prison for sharing voyeuristic student images

NAGOYA — A court on Tuesday sentenced a former teacher to two years in prison for taking indecent images of pupils and sharing them on social media, making him the first among members of an alleged teachers' voyeurism ring to receive a prison sentence in a high-profile case that came to light last year.

The Nagoya District Court handed down the sentence to Katsuya Ishikawa, 28, who was a teacher at a junior high school in Hayama, Kanagawa Prefecture, at the time of his arrest in September.

Judge Kyoko Irie said the defendant had also shared photos of the victims' faces within the group and "exposed them to the risk of the images being widely circulated and causing further harm."

According to the ruling, between July and December 2024, Ishikawa secretly took photos and videos of three female students at an elementary school in Kanagawa, where he was working at the time, capturing images in his smartphone that included their underwear, and shared them via a social media group chat.

In August last year, he also shot upskirt images of a then 14-year-old girl on an escalator of a station in Kamakura, also in Kanagawa Prefecture.

Considering that the defendant had compensated only one of the four victims and that the victims' parents strongly sought punishment, the court concluded that a prison sentence was appropriate, Irie said.

The victims' families also took part in the trial during closing arguments on March 26, saying none had been able to tell the victims they had been subjected to voyeurism. The mother of one victim told the court, "We will carry the fear of their photos being widely circulated for the rest of our lives."

Ishikawa was among seven members indicted in the case, comprising then-active and former teachers from Tokyo and four prefectures. Two were earlier sentenced at the Nagoya District Court to three years in prison, suspended for five years.

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