A Japanese man has been sentenced to life in jail for the rape and murder of a British teacher found dead in a sand-filled bathtub.
Tatsuya Ichihashi, 32, had admitted killing, but denied murdering, Lindsay Hawker, 22, from Brandon, near Coventry, at his home near Tokyo.He also admitted raping the English teacher, but said he tried to revive her after accidentally suffocating her.
She was last seen alive after giving her killer an English lesson, in 2007.
Miss Hawker's father, Bill, called for Ichihashi to be given the "heaviest sentence available".
'Battered-and-bound' He said the court should show "no mercy" to the defendant because her killer had shown no mercy to his daughter.
Miss Hawker, a Leeds University graduate, travelled to Japan in October 2006 to teach English with the Nova language school.
Ichihashi went on the run after Japanese police discovered the teacher's battered-and-bound body, buried naked in the bathtub on the balcony of his flat.
Tatsuya Ichihashi had admitted raping and strangling Miss Hawker but denied her murder
He was arrested at a ferry terminal in the city of Osaka, in western Japan in November 2009.Ichihashi has since published a book in which he confessed to the killing and describing how he had cosmetic surgery to change his appearance.
He claimed he wrote Until The Arrest as a "gesture of contrition for the crime I committed" and has promised to donate all proceeds to Miss Hawker's family.
Ichihashi told his trial on 4 July that he enticed Miss Hawker into his apartment, raped her and then strangled her because he feared neighbours would hear her screams and call the police.
He admitted causing her death but said he did not intend to murder her and could not remember strangling her.
Miss Hawker was last seen alive after giving her killer an English lesson in a coffee shop, on 25 March 2007.
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