In the early hours of an April day in 2002, an Australian woman claims she was raped by a U.S. sailor inside her van in a parking lot in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture.
After getting what she termed an indifferent response from police, learning there was no 24-hour rape crisis center in Japan, and finding that neither Japanese prosecutors nor the U.S. Navy intended to press charges against the alleged perpetrator, she decided to take action so future victims would not have to go through what she did.
The woman filed a lawsuit seeking damages from the sailor, who was stationed aboard the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk. In November 2004, the Tokyo District Court declared in the suit that the man, named as the defendant, had raped the woman and ordered him in absentia to pay 3 million yen in compensation.