Japan Ichiban! Number One!

Just in my mail box from ETJ (English Teacher’s Of Japan).

There have been rumors that Geos is in trouble since last September when a Geos spokesman admitted that sales were down and that the Nova collapse had caused ‘distrust among the public about English language schools’. The EL Gazette now reports that Geos is strongly denying the rumors.

According to the report, Chad Lafferty, Geos Teaching Ltd’s human resources director, said ‘Opening and closing locations is a normal part of business… The global recession has certainly impacted the way we do business but it would be wrong to say that any closures of the company are directly related to the recession.’ He went on to say that ‘Geos hasn’t laid off a single employee due to business results or the recession. Furthermore, we have no plans to do so.’

Click here to see the EL Gazette article (you will need to register). The digital version of EL Gazette, a news magazine for English language teachers around the world, is published monthly and can be accessed free of charge.

When Japanichiban started out many moons ago as a job support and advice organisation before the internet was even getting off the ground, we had an ad in the old Tokyo Classifieds advertising our services. It was a phone in help line and I remember our first person to use the service was a young lady from Geos on the verge of suicide. That was close to 15 years ago now and Geos are still ticking.

Let’s Japan started out their site also from Geos experiences as an outlet for teachers to debunk the myths of teaching English in Japan, especially for Geos.

Nova fell as have countless other English schools but Geos just keep on ticking away.

This latest news? Could this really be the end?

From Wiki!

An article in The Japan Times noted the deplorable working conditions of GEOS staff. In 1999, the company was taken to court by fourteen of its managers over unpaid overtime. At the time of the case, the main plaintiff said that she was working a 72-hour week under constant unmanageable pressure to increase sales at her school. Even though the managers won their suit, costing GEOS 300 million yen in unpaid overtime, the media mostly overlooked the case. In the same article, managers noted high staff-turnover and long working hours. However, a spokeswoman for the company insisted that GEOS, and the language learning industry as a whole, provided women with rare opportunities to begin business careers.[6]
Recent economic woes have lead Geos to be late paying the Japanese staff in August and September 2009. It is further reported that foreign teachers working at the adult schools were not paid on time in October 2009. Geos is currently asking clients to pay as much as 5 months in advance for the following year’s lessons in a bid to raise the necessary funds to meet payroll obligations. This financial distress has led many Japanese staff members to resign.[7]
GEOS began closing some of its branches in Japan in 2007, with more than 10% of domestic branches shuttering their doors in under two years. At its height, GEOS maintained teacher recruitment centers in London, Melbourne, Toronto, and Vancouver. Melbourne closed in March 2004, London and Toronto in October 2006, and the Vancouver center closed in October 2008.

The murderer of Lindsay Hawker has been parading around Japan getting cosmetic surgery it seems wherever he likes and nobody has done a thing about it.
Only after the fact have any of these cosmetic surgeries come forward with any information.
He’s now on the run again and nobody has any idea where he is.

After getting surgery in at least Fukuoka and Nagoya and possibly many other clinics around Japan he has transformed himself into something much different from when he committed the murder.

Here are some photos to show you the transformations.
Before & After surgery:

Possible Disguises:

Lindsay’s parents must again be infuriated.

“We have received no official confirmation of the reports despite attempts to do so,” Hawker’s parents and two sisters said in a statement issued last night.

“[We] would like to know who the surgeons were. Where did Ichihashi, the only suspect, obtain the money for the operation, and who is hiding him? Which hospitals and clinics carried out the work and why would they operate on a man who is allegedly the most wanted man in Japan?”

The family said they would “never give up hope” that Ichihashi will be caught. “He has had two years of freedom too long,” they said. “We would like the police to contact us and explain the situation properly, so that we know the facts, not just rumours.”

CHIBA —
A fugitive suspect in the 2007 murder of a British woman had cosmetic surgery at a clinic in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture last month, investigative sources said Wednesday.

The Oct 24 surgery is the first solid information in the ongoing hunt for Tatsuya Ichihashi, 30, who is wanted in connection with the murder of Lindsay Hawker, 22, a language teacher whose body was found at his apartment in Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture, since March 2007.

Chiba police will soon publicize a new photo of Ichihashi as the surgery, according to the sources, made him look very different from how he looks in the photo that has been released by police as the suspect in the Hawker case.

Police have already dispatched investigators to Aichi to search for other traces of Ichihashi, such as at hotels in Nagoya.

Ichihashi went missing after fleeing from police officers on March 26, 2007, at his apartment, where Hawker’s body was found in a sand-filled bathtub.

According to the sources, he had his nose altered at the Nagoya clinic, having entered a false name and an address in Osaka Prefecture and paid for the surgery in cash, but did not return to have the stitches removed on a later appointment day in late October.

Police believe Ichihashi, who had single-edged eyelids, a fat lower lip and two small spots on his left cheek, may have repeatedly had cosmetic surgery during his flight.

William Hawker, the victim’s father, said in a statement that the family has never given up hope that Ichihashi will be caught, but expressed dissatisfaction that he has not received any official confirmation from the police about the latest report. He also said that ‘‘two years of freedom’’ for the suspect is ‘‘too long.’‘

‘‘Who is hiding him? Which hospitals or clinics carried out the work and why would they operate on a man who is allegedly the most wanted man in Japan?’’ the statement said, adding the family want to know ‘‘the facts, not just rumors.’‘

Hawker’s mother, Julia, told the Daily Telegraph ‘‘We feel very let down. We have been told that this is the biggest man-hunt ever staged in Japan and no one in the country can say they don’t know who Ichihashi is. So why did nobody say anything when a young man has gone into this clinic and asked the doctor to change his appearance?’’ she was quoted as saying.

‘‘This is obviously very upsetting for us, but it also raises lots of questions—where has he been living? How has he been earning money? Where has he got enough money for plastic surgery?’’ she said.

‘‘But the most upsetting thing for us is that no-one has done anything about this sighting, it has come out in the media and the police always seem to be there after the event,’’ she added.

Hawker’s relatives have visited Japan several times, hoping to resolve the case, while the National Police Agency raised the cash reward for information leading to Ichihashi’s arrest from 1 million to 10 million yen in June this year.

3.5 year prison sentence just handed down.

Justice is served.

The damage to the industry as a whole though will never be returned. English schools all over Japan have been effected and enrollments are lower at most schools each year.

OSAKA, Aug. 26 (AP) – (Kyodo)—The founder and former president of English conversation school operator Nova Corp., Nozomu Sahashi, was sentenced Wednesday to three years and six months in prison without suspension for embezzling 320 million yen in Nova’s employment benefit funds.The Osaka District Court rejected the claim by the 57-year-old that he is not guilty or should receive a suspended sentence as he had no intention to gain profits unlawfully. Prosecutors had asked for a five-year prison term.

The ruling said Sahashi embezzled the accumulated employment benefit fund by transferring it to a bank account of a Nova subsidiary on July 20, 2007.

Sahashi admitted during trial proceedings that he used the money to reimburse language lesson fees people paid before terminating their contracts.

Aside from the criminal case, Sahashi faces several lawsuits that have been filed by employees who lost their jobs without receiving salaries, and students who got no refunds since Nova went bust in October 2007.

In the latest case, a bankruptcy administrator filed a damages suit on Aug. 19, seeking 2.1 billion yen in compensation for breach of trust, claiming Sahashi purchased equipment used for remote English lesson services against Nova’s business plan.

Some of Nova’s business operations were taken over by Nagoya-based G.communication Co. in the month following its bankruptcy.

Sahashi launched English conversation classes in Osaka in 1981 and set up Nova in 1990.

His venture once grew into Japan’s largest chain of English schools, with some 480,000 people taking language lessons at its peak, before going bankrupt.

Asahi News Today:

経営破綻（はたん）した英会話学校「ＮＯＶＡ」（大阪市、破産手続き中）の社員らの積立金３億２千万円を受講生への返還金に流用したとして、業務上横領の罪に問われた元社長猿橋望（さはし・のぞむ）被告（５７）に対し、大阪地裁は２６日、懲役３年６カ月（求刑懲役５年）の判決を言い渡した。樋口裕晃裁判長は「社員の福利厚生の資金を目的外に使い、経営の行き詰まりを切り抜けようとした犯行に酌量すべき点は見いだしがたい」と述べ、被告・弁護側の無罪主張を退けた。

判決によると、猿橋元社長は０７年７月、自らが会長を務めていた社員らの互助組織「社友会」の銀行口座にあった３億２千万円を、元社長が実質支配していた関連会社「ノヴァ企画」の口座に無断で移して横領。中途解約した受講生約２９００人に対する返還金の一部にあてた。

猿橋元社長は０７年１０月、経営悪化の責任などを問われ、臨時取締役会で社長を解任された。同社は会社更生法の適用を申請した後、破産手続きに移行している。

In June 2008 police also announced they were investigating Sahashi for possible embezzlement in the course of business for his ordering the transfer of the entire balance of a separately managed employee fund to a Nova business account to allow the payment of refunds to students. Sahashi, who owned the affiliate firm that handled the money transfer, did so in July 2007 to cover operating costs without the approval of employees. Nova employees had made monthly contributions from their pay to fund a mutual aid organization that covered the costs of business trips and occasions of congratulations or condolence. Rarely used, it had an accumulated balance of 300 million yen at the time of the transfer.^[11]

On the same day that investigators raided Nova Kikaku’s former headquarters,

While Sahashi acknowledged that the fund was under his control he denied any wrongdoing and on July 30,2008 he announced his intention to plead “not guilty.” Murata, reputed to be Sahashi’s right-hand man, reportedly admitted to allegations of embezzlement in the conduct of business. On August 25, 2009 Sahashi was found guilty of embezzlement and sentenced to three and a half years of imprisonment

More from the Mainichi Newspaper:

ＮＯＶＡ破綻：猿橋元社長に懲役３年６月　大阪地裁判決