Lucie Blackman's murderer has been acquitted. I call him her murderer because a blind, deaf, dumb and colossally developmentally challenged person could see that he murdered her. A year or so ago I interviewed Lucie's father for a piece for Glamour Marie Claire Generic Women's Mag about young women who get killed abroad. He sounded like his ego was in place - and he later took blood money from a friend of Joji Obara, the murderer - but he didn't sound like he had any doubt that Obara would be convicted. I had no doubt either. It was so open and shut, it was already shut.
Not according to the Japanese court. Before I went to Japan last year, my friend Julie, who knows plenty about sex crimes and abuse of women, said, “Don't go there. Japanese men are vile. They are vile to women.” I was annoyed at the time that she said that. But today I'm incensed that she was so right.