Tokyo child guidance centre didn't recheck a home after learning the child's care had changed, and the child later died, a review panel found.

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The Tokyo Metropolitan Child Welfare Council's child-abuse death review subcommittee, in a report published 30 April 2025, examined the 14 serious child-abuse cases that occurred in Tokyo in fiscal 2022, seven of which had involved a child guidance centre or municipal child and family support centre, and investigated four in depth. In one, a child guidance centre that had logged the family for psychological abuse after neighbours called police over a parental fight closed the case with advice only; when the father later told the centre's weekend and holiday service that he was now raising the child, the centre treated it as a custody dispute between the parents and did not consider re-investigating the home or acting for the child's safety. About two months later the child died after a parent jumped into the sea with them. The panel also found the municipal child and family support centre did not know the guidance centre had closed the file, and in another case agencies lowered a family's risk rating from 'abuse' to 'parenting difficulty' when the case was transferred after a move and did not revise support as circumstances changed before the child died.

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