Woman who cut off her newborn son's private parts handed 5-year prison term

Mainichi Daily News, Sakai, Osaka, Japan, November 26, 2006

SAKAI, Osaka -- A woman accused of cutting off her newborn son's private parts in 2004 was ordered Monday to spend five years behind bars.

The Sakai branch of the Osaka District Court convicted Shizue Tamura, 27, a resident of Izumi, Osaka Prefecture, of inflicting bodily injury.

"The way she committed the crime was unprecedented, inhumane and cruel," Presiding Judge Masahiro Hosoi said as he handed down the ruling. Prosecutors had demanded an eight-year prison term.

The judge dismissed the defendant's not-guilty plea, pointing out that only she and her son were at home at the time of the incident. However, he reduced her prison term to five years, considering her unhappy childhood and the fact that she was regularly abused by her common-law husband.

Tamura cut off part of the private parts of her second son, who was then 4 months old, at her home on March 1, 2004, leaving him with severe injuries that took seven months to heal and serious after-effects, according to the ruling.

The judge asserted that the defendant directed her anger with her common-law husband at her second son, pointing out that the man broke his promise to recognize her second son as his own son and to pay the costs of bringing up the victim. (Mainichi)