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Rapist hairdresser becomes first Japanese in Singapore to get the cane

  • Ikko Kita took the victim, a Singaporean student, to his flat and engaged in non-consensual acts while filming the encounter, a court heard

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The High Court of Singapore handed down the sentence to the 38-year-old Japanese hair stylist for assaulting a Singaporean university student. Photo: Ronan O’Connell
Kyodo
A Singapore court has sentenced a Japanese man to 17.5 years in prison and 20 strokes of the cane for raping and sexually assaulting a woman in 2019, a court document showed, marking the first case of a Japanese national receiving corporal punishment in the city state.

The Singapore High Court on Monday handed down the sentence to Ikko Kita, a 38-year-old hair stylist, for assaulting a then 20-year-old female Singaporean university student who was in a state of intoxication in the early hours of December 30, 2019.

Kita took the woman, whom he did not know, to his flat by taxi and engaged in non-consensual sexual acts with her while filming the encounter, according to court documents.

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He was apprehended by police later that day and released on bail the following day. He was charged in a lower court in May last year and has been remanded since then.

Presiding Judge Aedit Abdullah said the assaults were “brutal and cruel” in the ruling, adding the sentence should be heavy given the circumstance of the offences committed against the victim, who was drunk and vulnerable.

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Kita had pleaded guilty to the charges.

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