The Tokyo District Court on Tuesday sentenced a former teacher at a Tokyo cram school to two years in prison, suspended for five years, for secretly filming the girls attending the school.

According to the ruling, Sosho Mori, the 25-year-old former teacher, took upskirt photos of 12 Yotsuya Otsuka cram school students then between the ages of 7 and 11 with his smartphone between March 2023 and August the same year in a classroom at the school, which teaches elementary school children aiming to take junior high school entrance examinations.

He also sent some of the images to another former Yotsuya Otsuka teacher.

In addition, Mori stored the children's personal data on his smartphone and posted the pictures on a social media chat forum, according to the ruling.

Handing down the sentence, Masakazu Kamakura, a judge at the court, said that Mori committed the crime by "abusing his position" as a teacher at the school and "taking advantage of low vigilance among the victims." His act, which was difficult to be detected, involved "a high risk of sexual freedom being violated," the judge said.

The transmission of the images and personal information created a risk of them spreading elsewhere, Kamakura also said.

Still, the judge gave Mori a suspended prison sentence after the accused expressed regret over what he did.

The judge told Mori to make efforts for rehabilitation, saying, "I think that's your responsibility."