Ex-judo coach found guilty of causing life-changing injury

An ex-judo coach, a fourth degree black belt, was found guilty of throwing a sixth grade elementary school student during practice at a judo training hall in May 2008 in Matsumoto, Nagano. The coach received a one year suspended prison sentence and was placed on three year probation for causing the child to have an acute subdural hematoma which left him severely dysfunctional.

While as many as 118 children have died in judo incidents in a 29 year period, it was the second criminal judo case in which the defendant was found guilty. In the first case, a first grade elementary school student was thrown by a coach and died. The coach admitted immediately after the incident that he had become upset and threw the boy with violent force, so it was obvious that the defendant was guilty. However in the second case, a guilty sentence was given even though the coach insisted till the end that he was not the cause of the incident.

In the ruling, it was determined that the coach was at fault for failing to apply appropriate force when he threw the boy. The presiding judge told the judo coach, the defendant, that “It is your mission to widely communicate the risk of judo in the judo community.”

The ruling not only questioned the responsibility of the defendant, the judo coach, but also called the All Japan Judo Federation to account, as AJJF did nothing when so many children had died in judo incidents.

It was a groundbreaking ruling shedding judicial light on judo incidents which, until now, had been settled as “bad accidents”.

The Mainichi by The Mainichi Newspapers
http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20140430p2g00m0dm060000c.html




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