Chiba: Robotics specialist trespassed into residences to photograph women’s underwear

CHIBA (TR) – Chiba Prefectural Police on Friday arrested a 50-year-old robotics researcher who is suspected of trespassing into the residences of women to photograph their underwear, reports the Sankei Shimbun (Feb. 16).

In March of last year, Toshio Hori, the head researcher in robotics at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, allegedly broke into the residence of a woman in Chiba Prefecture.

According to the Chiba Chuo Police Station, a search of the residence of Hori, located in Tokyo, resulted in the discovery of a large number of digital photographs of women’s underwear.

“I have an interest in women’s underwear,” the suspect was quoted by police.

Police said Hori shared the photographs with Hayato Yagi, a 36-year-old resident of Tokyo’s Nakano Ward, whom he met on an underground internet site.

The matter emerged after a cyber patrol unit of the police saw photographs showing the inside of women’s residences on the site. Hagi has also been accused in the case.

According to the web site of the institute, Hori received a doctorate from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Tokyo in 1996. Between 2008 and 2009, he was a secretariat for the Cabinet Office’s Council for Science, Technology and Innovation program.

Since 2006, he has served as a part-time lecturer at Waseda University. He is also a member of the Japan Robotics Society.

“Since other persons have the same names as staff members, it cannot be confirmed whether [a staff member] was arrested or not,” a representative of the institute was quoted. “Therefore, we cannot comment.”