Shiori Ito: Japanese journalist awarded $30,000 in damages in rape case

A Japanese court has requested a prominent TV columnist to pay 3.3 million yen ($30,000; £22,917) in harms to a writer who blamed him for assault.

Shiori Ito asserted that Noriyuki Yamaguchi assaulted her in 2015 while she was oblivious.

Investigators said there was insufficient proof for a criminal case, so Ms Ito brought a typical case.

Ito has become an image of the #MeToo development in a nation where individuals once in a while report rape.

"I'm so cheerful," said 30-year-old Ito, who held up a sign which read "triumph" after the decision was declared.

However, in a news meeting hours after the fact, Yamaguchi said he wanted to request - and he again denied the assault charges.

As per Ito, 53-year-old Yamaguchi - who is said to have close connections to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe - welcomed her to supper to talk about a potential opening for work in 2015.

She speculates she may have been tranquillised, saying that when she recaptured awareness, she was "in lodging and he was over me".

Ito was an assistant at news office Reuters when the supposed assault happened.

Yamaguchi was then Washington authority boss for the Tokyo Broadcasting System, a significant media firm in Japan.

Examinations were opened however then dropped by police, referring to insufficient proof.

A 2017 government review found that lone 4% of assault unfortunate casualties announced the wrongdoing to the police.

Shiori Ito: In her own words

As a component of the examination concerning my charges, I was approached to go to the police headquarters adjoining the lodging I was taken to that night.

At the point when I showed up, joined by my closest companion, for good help, I was taken to an exercise centre on an upper floor of the station. I had caught wind of what was going to occur, and requested my companion to have the option to accompany me.

The police can't. I was taken into the exercise centre and advised to lie on a sleeping pad. The life-size mannequin was then delivered, Three male officials moved the doll over me, asking me cosy inquiries about precisely what occurred and taking photos.

I was advised this was basic to the examination.

It was as of now that I needed to make a move in my mind from the complainant to writer.

The primary way I have had the option to proceed has been to compartmentalise my emotions - I needed to regard this as a story I was following: I was looking for reality as a writer, disengaged and impartial.

That is as yet how I attempt to outline it in my psyche.

Ito recorded a joint claim against Yamaguchi looking for 11 million yen ($100,517; £76,758) in pay.

Yamaguchi, who denies any lousy behaviour and cases the sex was consensual, documented a counter-suit looking for 130 million yen ($1,187,941; £907,135) in remuneration. Yet, this was dismissed by the court.

He will currently need to pay Ms Ito $30,000 in harms; however there remains no criminal body of evidence against him.

Under Japan's assault law, investigators must demonstrate brutality or terrorising was included, or that the injured individual was "unequipped for the opposition".