On April 24, the Yokohama District Court had the first trial of Yutaka Ushimi, 63, a psychiatrist in Yokohama, who was charged with quasi-forcible indecency for inserting objects and fingers into the vagina of female patients under false pretenses of medical treatment.
When the defendant Ushimi was arrested by police in May 2023, he stated that “I’ve done so much I can’t remember.” The police received a number of reports of damage caused by him, and the details of his despicable crimes were revealed at the trial.
The defendant, who is out on bail, was dressed in a suit and a tie. He doesn’t look haggard. He admitted his charges without hesitation. The charges at his first trial were four, but the prosecution plans to bring additional charges in the future.
According to the now-deleted website, he was born in Shizuoka, and graduated from Hamamatsu University of Medicine, and worked at several hospitals before opening Ushimi Mental Clinic in 2011. He is familiar with alcoholism and was involved in articles on the subject. Since May of last year, a series of indecent assaults on the defendant were uncovered and he was arrested by Kanagawa Prefectural Police.
On June 20, 2017, a patient visited Ushimi Mental Clinic and reported abdominal pain. He told her that it might be caused by her uterus and that she needed an internal examination of her uterus, and led her to “the second examination room” at the back of the clinic.
All the crimes were committed in the second examination room. The room in which the bed was placed was a room of terror for female patients. Ushimi had the patient lie on her back on a bed in the room and examined her abdomen. He then told her to remove her pants and underwear and inserted a hard rod-like object into her vagina, saying “This is like an endoscope to look inside the vagina.”
He also inserted a finger, saying things like, “I inserted the device and there was no problem, so I’ll insert a finger to double check.”
According to the prosecution’s opening statement, Ushimi repeatedly committed similar indecent acts on female patients. Usually, a vaginal examination isn’t needed in psychiatry, but the keyword Ushimi used to commit indecent acts was “prescription of Chinese herbal medicine.”
On February 18, 2022, when examining a female patient in her 50s, the defendant recommended prescribing herbal medicine. An increasing number of psychiatrists are using Chinese herbal medicine as an alternative to psychotropic drugs, which are known to be dangerous in large doses, and there is nothing strange about this in itself. However, in order to prescribe herbal medicine, the defendant took the female patients to the examination room, saying that it was necessary to examine her abdomen and mucous membranes. Of course, no such examination was necessary. This was her fist visit to the clinic.
In addition to these women, the defendant inserted a kind of sanitary cotton or a finger into patients’ vagina, saying it was to prescribe herbal medicines. Many women would have been uncomfortable, but put up with it for the sake of medical treatment. However, the crime came to light when several victims spoke out.
Each of the affected women consulted the prefectural office, another clinic and a Chinese medicine manufacturer. Wherever they consulted, such treatment was “strange.” And one after another, information was gathered to the prefectural police, leading to the arrest of Ushimi. It’s believed that the crimes were so regular that only some of them became incidents and the defendant stated that “there were too many and I can’t remember them.”
Ushimi admitted his guilt at his first trial. However, he prefaced his plea by saying that these were a long time ago and his memory wasn’t clear, and that he said that it wasn’t a metal rod and that it wasn’t sanitary cotton.
He was very particular about details and didn’t offer any apologies. He didn’t seem very remorseful.
