A Japanese film director has been hit with another 8-year prison sentence for sexually assaulting two young actresses who were supposed to star in his movies.
Tokyo High Court upheld the original ruling on July 24 against 56-year-old Sakaki Hideo. He was found guilty of using his position as director to put the women in situations where they couldn’t really resist, then assaulting them.
The attacks happened between March 2015 and September 2016. The two actresses, both in their 20s at the time, were assaulted a total of five times at his office and in hotels around Tokyo.
Sakaki kept claiming everything was consensual and that he was innocent. The prosecution had asked for 10 years in the first trial, but the court stuck with 8 years both times. Prosecutors didn’t appeal the original sentence.
For those who follow Japanese cinema, Sakaki is known for films like Sute-gataki Hitobito (People Who Are Hard to Throw Away), which made it into the competition section of the Tokyo International Film Festival back in 2014.
Power imbalance cases like this keep coming up in the industry. When one person holds the keys to someone’s career, “consent” gets a lot more complicated. The courts clearly weren’t buying the “it was mutual” defense this time.