InsideJapan News Network

The owner of a bookshop in Kanagawa Prefecture has been cleared of charges relating to the molestation of two female employees.

Although the man had been accused of repeatedly touching a female employee between February and March 2005, and of hugging another in February 2005, a Yokohama District Court in Kanagawa Prefecture acquitted the man.

After being arrested in May 2005, the accused had been detailed in police custody for a period of 18 months.

"The testimonies are inconsistent and unnatural even though carrying out the crime as testified is not impossible," Judge Takashi Chubachi.

"There is still a reasonable doubt that prevents concluding that the defendant committed such crimes."

At the time of the incident, the two employees were 18 years of age.

In related news, a 2001 study of two schools in Tokyo found that over 70 per cent of respondents had been groped while using a train, reports japanfortheuninvited.com.