British women beaten in Japan in 2004 tells her story
Posted by Matt Dioguardi on June 15th, 2007
Most people in Japan have heard of Lindsay Ann Hawker and Lucie Blackman, but I don’t think many people have heard of Annette Langston.
Her story was recently reported by Sarah Foster in The Northern Echo:
Langston was brutally attacked in her house by a Japanese acquaintance. She was knocked unconscious and woke up with her lower half unclothed. Unsure of what had happened, she immediately fled her home. She was attacked again, knocked unconscious again, and then woke up in an ambulance. Fortunately in her case someone saw what was happening and helped out. Her assaulter is now in jail for ten years.
This is a gripping story, and it makes me wonder how many other stories are out there that haven’t been reported at all. This doesn’t just happen to foreign women.
The article concludes:
Annette believes that our perception of Japan, not helped by Japanese resistance to reporting general crime, can give a false sense of the truth. Above all else, she urges vigilance. “I think Japan is made out as this mystical, magical place and a lot of it is fascinating, but really it’s just like any other country,” she says. “There’s crime, there’s terrorism and a lot of seedy things like the porn industry. I think people think ‘it won’t happen to me’, but it might.”
Right.