Internet date becomes nightmare

2005-05-13 08:25

Tokyo - A Japanese man allegedly chained a teenage girl with a dog collar for more than three months and repeatedly raped and beat her after meeting her in an internet chatroom, said police on Thursday.

Yasuyoshi Kobayashi - who at age 24 had been married and divorced four times - was arrested on Wednesday nearly a year after the crime.

The girl reported the matter to the police.

Police said the 19-year-old girl travelled from the western province of Hyogo to Tokyo to see Kobayashi in March last year after he threatened on the internet to send gangsters to her home if she did not obey him.

A police official said he allegedly kept her in hotels and his apartment in a dog collar, demanding she addressed him as "master".

Kobayashi 'confines his wives'

He repeatedly raped and assaulted her in an ordeal he photographed with his mobile telephone.

Kobayashi pretended he had guards to dissuade the girl from leaving and he would call her home in Hyogo to assure her family that everything was fine.

The girl was rescued in June 2004 after she escaped and called for help from a shop.

According to news reports, Kobayashi had a history of confining and assaulting his wives.

He was reportedly arrested in 2002 for a similar case and sentenced to three years in prison, but he was still on probation with a five-year suspension.

According to the news reports, Kobayashi denied the accusation and said he could not remember his involvement with the girl and suffered from schizophrenia.

- SAPA