「最近のイギリス事情」　勉強会コミュのルーシーブラックマンの消えたお金？？？

なんでもらったかの記事が見つかりました。

The Observer
Sunday April 29, 2007

http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,2068062,00.html

Why I took '100 million pieces of silver' for my daughter's death


A Japanese millionaire was cleared last week in Tokyo of killing Lucie Blackman. Here her father tells The Observer's Stephen Pritchard, a friend since school, of his seven-year fight for justice, why he accepted a 'condolence payment' and the future for the family




Lucie Blackman was a gorgeous child; a perky and pretty baby who cooed her way through my wedding 28 years ago, dandling on the knee of her father, Tim, a close friend since schooldays.
Naturally Lucie and her father appear in photographs of that bright April day, and particularly in a grainy piece of soundless cine-film, taken as we leave our wedding reception. There is Tim with my musician friends Richard and Barry, silently playing us out on banjo, guitar and fiddle as my new bride and I say our goodbyes to so many treasured, older faces who have since slipped quietly away into the sepia tint of memory.

But Lucie was not to be allowed such a dignified exit in old age. Her fate, 21 years later in Tokyo, was to make headlines around the world and put her family through years of bitterness and recrimination. It all came back last week with the acquittal of the man accused of killing her.
In your youth you never imagine that one of your friends could be caught up in such a tragedy. You are too busy enjoying the sheer fun and exhilaration of each other's company to think about next week, let alone the next decades and what may lie beyond.

I've known Tim since I was 12, but such is the hierarchy of school life I didn't actually get to speak to him until I was 14. He was a year older than me, and therefore existed on a forbidden planet, but one day in 1969 we boarded a train bound for an East Anglian school holiday and found ourselves in the same compartment. He had a four-string banjo, I had a guitar, so naturally we annoyed the other passengers by playing them - badly. Also in the compartment was a better guitarist, Richard. I revealed my desire to teach myself the double bass, and soon we were making plans to form a band. Tim and Richard were keen to learn some bluegrass - music I'd hardly heard of and didn't much care for, but in that adolescent desire to belong I went along with their plans.

Barry joined us on fiddle and mandolin, and as we grew so did demand for our easily portable music. We went on to win festivals, play on the radio, appear at Wembley and cut an album, which rocketed into obscurity. We left our homes on the Isle of Wight, found jobs and each of us married young, but we kept in touch and we kept playing, bonded by that strange alchemy that is music.

Tim always had a breezy confidence, an infectious can-do attitude and, crucially, a warm sense of humour and a delight in life's little absurdities. In the dark days since Lucie's disappearance it is this disarming cheerfulness that has kept him going. But it would be wrong to mistake his apparent blitheness for a lack of determination. Throughout he has had a strong desire to obtain justice for Lucie.

Last week I travelled back to the Isle of Wight to talk to him about the past seven years, the case, and the most controversial episode in the whole saga: his acceptance of £420,000 'condolence money' from the accused, which brought wide condemnation - not least from Lucie's mother, his ex-wife, Jane Steare.

Let's begin at the beginning: 1 July 2000, when Lucie, a bar hostess in Tokyo, vanished after saying she was going to see a friend. Lucie's younger sister, Sophie, immediately boarded a plane for Tokyo to begin the search. Tim stayed behind to lobby for diplomatic support here in the UK, before heading out himself.

'I don't think in straight lines,' said Tim. 'I knew I had to a develop a strategy in Britain first. Sophie was telling me that the Tokyo police were just not interested in another missing foreign girl, so I knew I had to raise awareness here to push them into doing something.

'A straight-line thinker would say "I'm anxious, I'm in trauma." Non-straight-line thinking says "There's a G8 summit in Tokyo coming up. I can make this really important," so I started talking to the press here and built up the story. When I got to Tokyo, the British Embassy had to move a press conference into an auditorium because hundreds of press people had turned up.

'I turned to Sophie and said: "This is how we are going to find Lucie. This is going to put pressure on the authorities to put her face in front of the public".'

Tony Blair and the then Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, met Tim and promised to speak to the Japanese Prime Minister. A poster campaign was launched, and, crucially, a hotline set up, which began receiving calls from girls claiming that they had been attacked by a millionaire businessman, Joji Obara. They feared that he might have lured Lucie away.

Obara was questioned in October 2000 and admitted meeting Lucie, but he denied any part in her subsequent disappearance. Still, the Blackman family fought on, never giving up hope that Lucie might still be found. Then came the terrible news in February 2001 that her dismembered body had been discovered in a cave on a beach near Obara's home. Her head had been encased in concrete.

In April that year police charged Obara with rape and fatal assault. He pleaded not guilty and was left to languish in jail until November 2003 when his trial began; an agonisingly long wait for the family, but the police were building up a case against him which involved nine other women.

Japanese justice is slow, but, says Tim, the delays have a purpose: they make the accused reflect on their crimes and admit their errors.

'The Japanese honour system requires that they atone, or they will bring dishonour on their family. Part of that atonement can be a payment to the victim or victim's family. If it is part of genuinely voiced contrition, then that may be taken into consideration by the judge when passing sentence.'

Tim was told by the police that he would probably receive a call from a friend or relative of Obara, offering him money as part of the condolence process. Sure enough, in November 2005 he was shopping in Newport, Isle of Wight, when his mobile rang. A thin voice at the other end said in broken English that he was representing the Obara defence team and wanted to discuss the possibility of making what he called an 'atonement payment'.

'I rejected the whole idea at the time, and referred it to the police, both in Japan and London. I had a discussion with the Tokyo Metropolitan Police. They said for someone denying the charges, we don't understand this. If he is not admitting any guilt, then no payments can qualify.' In the event, Obara made 'condolence payments' to most of his victims. It was, said Tim, an indication of the truly bizarre nature of the man; his unreliable, implausible evidence, his wild interjections in court, and his assurance that he could talk his way out of the case. At one point, he sacked his entire legal team, apparently on a whim.

So what made Tim change his mind last September and accept 100 million yen before the verdict? This made his ex-wife, Jane, who separated from Tim 12 years ago, furious. 'He is conducting these negotiations against my wishes and the pleas of his children. Lucie's loyal family and friends are sickened by Tim Blackman's utter betrayal,' she said at a press conference. Last week she described it as 'blood money' and '100 million pieces of silver', adding: 'Judas was content with just 30'.

'Principally, I wanted to secure the long-term future of the Lucie Blackman Trust,' said Tim, referring to the trust which works to help young people be more aware of their safety, particularly when abroad. It launches a special text message service next month.

'Nothing I do is going to change what happened. Nothing will bring Lucie back. My responsibility now is for the living. At the time I was very anxious about Sophie [who made a suicide attempt and has been in psychiatric care], for my son Rupert and for the wider Blackman family, who have suffered terribly throughout all this.

'I personally have lost the past seven years, devoting so much time, energy and emotion in the case. I need to repair my own life as well as those around me.

'But I knew I would get slated, I knew my ex-wife would hate me if I accepted the money. I spoke to my dear dad about it and he said, "You don't know what might happen. You may come out of this with nothing."'

But what of the statement he was required to sign before the money was paid? Phrased in fractured English, it calls into question the cause of death: 'Hereinbefore and as father of Lucie Blackman I would like you please inspect the most important these three points supposed to be able to clarify the cause of death and this case.'

'To me, it was a meaningless piece of paper,' Tim said. 'The body was so decomposed none of us knew the cause of death for certain. I knew the defence would try to introduce this in the case, and sure enough they did. The judge immediately threw it out as inadmissible.'

At the same time, he sent a letter to the prosecution: 'I believe the defendant to be guilty of all charges. I do not forgive the defendant in any way whatsoever. The condolence from his friend is accepted just as we have received condolence from around the world.'

When last week Judge Tsutomu Tochgi finally sentenced Obara to life imprisonment for his assaults on the nine other women, he said of the payments, 'there is a limit to how far one can take such matters into consideration' - in other words, the payments made little difference to the sentence for his appalling crimes. At the same time, the judge made it clear that he was acquitting Obara on the charges relating to Lucie, not because any money was paid, but because the case lacked any direct evidence linking him with her death.

This was something Tim had worried away at for months. While all the evidence pointed to Obara's guilt in the Lucie case, all of it was circumstantial. There was no video of Lucie being attacked (Obara had videoed himself raping his other victims); there was no DNA on her body; there were no traces of her blood in the apartment where he was alleged to have cut up her body. 'If only Jane had been sitting in the court to hear the judge's summing up and to read the translations, she would know the truth about the circumstantial evidence,' said Tim.

So what of the future? Immediately after the verdict, Tim and Sophie spoke of their anger, disappointment and determination to carry on with an appeal, but back in his Isle of Wight home, Tim is in more reflective mood. He had been speaking to the wider family, who worry for the future of their children - all of whom had worshipped their older cousin. Was it time to draw a line under the affair?

He is aware that with the years Obara has already served in custody deducted from his sentence and parole he could in theory be out in a decade, but this seems highly unlikely. 'We were instrumental in getting Obara sentenced to life for a string of appalling attacks on women,' he said. 'We are proud of that, and proud that Tokyo is a safer place now. We are proud that we got justice for his other, nameless victims. It's too early to decide on an appeal - indeed, it may not be in my hands to decide - and it could take years and then fail.'

A sudden weariness crumples his face. 'I'm concerned what a failure might do to us all. It would be a very sad, nasty epitaph. As it is, Lucie is a heroine now. She has got justice for all those women.'

Search for justice

4 May 2000
Lucie Blackman arrives in Tokyo.

1 July 2000
Goes missing while a nightclub hostess.

12 July 2000
Her father, Tim Blackman, joins her sister, Sophie, in Tokyo hunt for Lucie.

11 October 2000
Joji Obara, held in connection with several rapes, quizzed on Lucie's death.

9 February 2001
Lucie's dismembered body found in cave at Miura, near Obara's flat.

6 April 2001
Obara charged with kidnapping, raping and fatally assaulting Lucie.

27 Nov 2003
Trial begins.

30 Sept 2006
Blackman says he accepted 100m yen from Obara friend.

24 April 2007
Court clears Obara of attack on Lucie.

Staying safe abroad
SafetyText is a text message system set up by the Lucie Blackman Trust that enables you to send a text detailing where you are going and who with. It only gets delivered if you aren't safe and therefore can't cancel it. The message is sent to a contact of your choice, at a time of your choice.SafetyText costs 25p, plus your network's standard text message charge. Full details at www.safetytext.com.

http://www.lucieblackmantrust.org

判決直後の英文記事。


Tuesday April 24, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

Japanese killer described as 'cunning beast'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,2064524,00.html

Obara led the life of a rich playboy and filmed himself having sex with drugged women

Matt Weaver and agencies



File photo of Japanese businessman Joji Obara. Photo: AP

The businessman Joji Obara was described in a court as a "cunning beast". He was found guilty today of raping and killing Australian Carita Ridgway and raping eight other women between 1992 and 2000.
But he was cleared of raping and killing Lucie Blackman, the British former flight attendant whose dismembered body was found encased in concrete close to Obara's luxury apartment.

A disturbing profile of Obara emerged during his trial.

Police who searched his seaside home found 200 videos of him having sex with drugged women. They also found date-rape drugs and a dead Alsatian in his fridge surrounded by roses.

Obara was born King Sung-jong in 1952 to Korean parents. As Korean immigrants his family were considered second-class citizens in Japan, but his father's successful taxi business allowed them to escape their humble origins.
Obara studied law and politics at an elite Tokyo university. He took Japanese citizenship and changed his name. He even had plastic surgery to look more Japanese.

When he was 17, his father died leaving Obara a vast fortune.

This allowed him to lead the life of a playboy during the 1980s and 1990s. He liked driving luxury European cars and developed a fetish for having sex with unconscious women.

He lost much of his fortune in the 1990s, racking up debts of £122m after the Japanese property bubble burst. He owed some of his money to mafia clans.

But in 2000, still with money to spend, he was a regular at the Casablanca bar in Roppongi where Ms Blackman was a hostess at the time she disappeared.

He used various pseudonyms and met western girls. Sometimes he persuaded them to go back to his apartment, where, the court heard, he then drugged and raped them, often while wearing a Zorro mask.

The court was told the chloroform he used had led to the death of Ms Ridgway in 1992. She died of liver failure in hospital after meeting Obara.

An accomplished English speaker, Obara defended himself in court by presenting Ms Blackman as an unstable drug user. He admitted spending time with her on the day she disappeared but denied killing her.

Obara said there was no physical evidence linking him to her death. "The autopsy could not find the cause of her death and they could not find my DNA from the body, but they said I caused her death," he said.

On this point the court agreed. Today Judge Tsutomu Tochigi said police failed to provide evidence directly linking Obara to Ms Blackman's death.

Her father, Tim Blackman, expressed his frustration at the verdict, which he said robbed her of justice.

Obara's lawyer claimed he would appeal against his nine convictions for rape and the killing of Ms Ridgway.





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