Posh girls' school principal arrested for purse snatching
The principal of a university affiliated with a posh Tokyo girls' junior high
school has been arrested for stealing a purse from a woman on
the JR Yamanote Line train earlier this month, police said.
Hideo Yatagai, 52, the principal of the girls' junior high school affiliated
with the Bunkyo Gakuin University in Tokyo's Bunkyo-ku, was arrested for theft.
Yatagai, of Katsushika-ku, Tokyo, admits to the allegations, saying he was
drunk at the time of the March 9 incident.
Yatagai apologized to school officials during a meeting last week and was
fired on Monday.
"I've done something really terrible. I want to apologize as quickly as I can,"
he said during the March 14 meeting with staff before bursting into tears.
Police said Yatagai stole the purse containing 22,000 yen in cash from a woman
riding on the Yamanote Line from Ebisu to Hamamatsucho stations at some time between
11:50 p.m. on March 9 and 12:20 a.m. the following day. Yatagai was on his way home
after attending the wake of a deceased associate.
Masakazu Shimada, managing director of the Bunkyo Gakuen group that runs a selection
of educational institutions including the school where Yatagai worked, held a news
conference on Monday and apologized.
"A person in a position of responsibility for educating caused a scandal that
we apologize deeply for," Shimada said.
In August last year, the school Yatagai headed won the national schoolgirl
volleyball title for the second consecutive year.
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/national/news/20080318p2a00m0na009000c.html