Japanese man slashed woman’s car tyres outside supermarket then came to her rescue

Surveillance footage showed Yoshito Harada, 32, had caused the damage before offering to help the woman, who became suspicious

Online sleuths connected this to a case seven years ago where a man admitted he had used this ruse ‘about 1,000 times’ to meet women

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Japanese police detained a man who slashed a woman’s car tyres outside a supermarket before offering to help her. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 5:51pm, 6 Jul 2020Updated: 11:27pm, 6 Jul 2020

Police in Japan have detained a man who slashed a woman’s car tyres outside a supermarket, before following her and posing as a Good Samaritan.

Yoshito Harada, 32, was on Friday detained by police in the town of Higashiura, in the central Japan prefecture of Aichi. He was questioned about an incident involving a 43-year-old woman who was forced to pull over with a flat tyre while driving away from a supermarket.

According to Tokai TV news, as the woman surveyed the damage, Harada, an office worker from nearby Miyoshi City, pulled up and offered to help her replace the tyre.

Although the woman reportedly appreciated the apparently random act of kindness by a passing stranger, she soon turned suspicious. The same sequence of events had occurred to her in June last year and, once again, a man in his 30s just happened to be passing and came to her rescue.

The woman did not recognise the man, but decided to report the latest incident to local police, who used surveillance footage of the supermarket car park to conclude Harada had caused the damage. Additional footage showed he had followed the woman and was on hand to be the first to stop and offer to help her.