Shibuya love hotel employee arrested for assault on sleeping guest

You’re safe during that postcoital sleep, right? Perhaps not.

A Japanese woman was enjoying her post-sex slumber at a love hotel in Shibuya, Tokyo, when she was sexually assaulted by a 49-year-old man who works at the hotel.

The man, Kenji Honda, was arrested on suspicion of sexual assault, police announced August 8.

The incident itself dates back to March, according to media reports, and it’s not clear why it has taken so long for the arrest to take place.

Honda is accused of sneaking into the woman’s room on March 25 between 5:30 and 6:50 a.m. and forcibly touching her breasts and crotch. The woman was alone at the time, having checked in with a man, who had subsequently left before her.

Honda worked at the hotel at the front desk and doing cleaning. At the time of the incident, he was the only member of staff on duty. He is suspected of realizing that the man had left the room by himself, presenting him with an opportunity to enter the room and assault the woman.

The victim woked to find herself being assaulted and reported the incident to police.

Honda denies the charge. “I knocked several times to confirm she was safe. I touched her shoulder but not the lower half of her body.”

However, this claim is contradicted by videos that police found on his phone showing him sexually assaulting at least five sleeping women in a similar way.

The hotel has a policy of phoning a room if a member of a couple leaves alone, and then going to the door to knock if there is no response. It is likely that Honda took advantage of this rule, knowing that if the woman was not woken by the room’s phone or a knock at the door, that was asleep fast enough to be assaulted.

Unfortunately, this isn’t a unique incident.

In August last year, a 21-year-old employee at a hotel in Yokohama’s Chinatown used a master key to enter a room where a couple was staying. The couple woke up and realized the employee had been taking photos or a video of the sleeping woman. They managed to detain the employee and call police. It was subsequently found that the man had images of multiple sleeping women on his phone.

In March, a hotel employee was arrested in Mutsu, Aomori, on suspicion of sneaking into a room to film or take pictures of a guest.