After graduating with a business studies degree from Heriot-Watt university, she
had enrolled upon a Japanese Exchange and Teaching (JET) programme and would be
spending the next three years living and working in the country she'd dreamed
of visiting since she was a child.
Her visit did indeed prove to be unforgettable - but for all the wrong reasons.
In a chilling echo of the circumstances preceding the murder last month of
Lindsay Hawker - found buried in a bath full of sand - Sharon was singled out
and subjected to a terrifying stalking campaign by a Japanese man.
For five months, he bombarded her with anonymous letters, sat outside her house
for hours watching her every movement and finally confronted her in a
terrifying encounter from which she only narrowly escaped having fled for her
life.
Now, back home after her ordeal, she describes the harrowing sequence of events
which followed her arrival as a gaijin - a foreign woman - in a rural community
far from home.
"It was the most frightening experience of my life," she says. "I left the UK
with such high hopes of an enormous adventure and returned a shadow of my
former self.
"I had never been one to shy away from new challenges and I'd done a lot of
travelling on my own before. But being stalked in Japan has left me twitchy,
nervous and scared to spend even a night alone.
"Reading about what happened to Lindsay Hawker has brought it all back to me
and now I suppose I should be thankful I escaped with my life."
The naked body of English teacher Lindsay, 22, was found in an apartment in
Ichikawa, in the east of Tokyo. She had been tortured, beaten and strangled.
Her suspected killer, Tatsuya Ichihashi, 28, is still free.
Sharon shudders now when she realises just how close she, too, may have come to
being attacked - or worse. While she speaks highly of the Japanese as a nation,
she is also angry that she wasn't warned by the teaching organisation about the
strange fascination some Japanese men have for Western women.
"Because we're so much taller and more curvaceous than Japanese women, the
local men can be a little bit leery and pay you far more attention than would
be acceptable or polite in Britain," she says.
"I thought I had no reason to worry," Sharon says. "During my travels I'd
always tried to live like a local not a tourist, wanting to see the world and
to learn about other cultures. My trip to Japan was not going to be any
different."
Having been given an apartment in the small village of Aoya, with only 8,000
residents, she realised she was the only white person in the entire village -
the only other foreigners were two Chinese.
"At first I didn't feel alien or in danger. The Japanese are very polite so
they welcomed me with open arms," she says.
Sharon regularly emailed her family at home. Her boyfriend of eight months,
Rob, then 24, was concerned about her safety - he asked about Japanese men and
if she ever felt threatened. "I was surprised, because I never took a second
glance at the local men. They were all very short and skinny and not very
threatening. I also didn't think they would ever be interested in me," says
Sharon.
"All Japanese women are absolutely tiny. Even though I was only a size eight to
ten, I was a 'large' or 'extra large' in Japanese clothes and my shoe size five
meant I couldn't find one pair of shoes to fit me.
"I emailed him back, telling him that they wouldn't even notice me. But after a
few weeks, I began to be aware that the men did watch me a lot and that
whenever I went into the city of Tottori, the local men would ogle all the
Western women and wouldn't look away even when we were obviously not enjoying
the attention.
"This shocked me because generally the culture seemed very restrained and
disciplined.
"I knew from talking to Japanese people that even by talking to a Japanese man
I could give him the wrong impression - that I was interested in him - so I
couldn't understand why they felt that they could unashamedly leer at us.
However, I never felt threatened because I was always in a large group."
Back in the village, Sharon spent her evenings keeping fit at the local gym and
planning her English classes.
A year into her stay she signed up to karate classes. But it was after one of
these lessons in November 2004, that her idyllic view of Japan was shattered.
"I had only just come in from karate and shut the door behind me when a hand
jutted through my letterbox and dropped a plain white envelope on to my mat.
"A chill ran up my spine, I'd been in the village long enough to know that
nobody delivers letters that late at night and I'd only just walked in so
whoever delivered the letter must have been watching me.
"I couldn't read the script, it was in Japanese, but my instincts told me to
get out of there as quickly as possible. I called a taxi, got him to escort me
to my car and drove to another village where another British teacher, named
Helen, lived."
The next day, Sharon had the letter translated at her school. It read: "Hello
Sharon, how are you? I'm a 37-year-old man living in Aoya. I'm not married but
don't get me wrong, I'm not afraid of commitment. I think you are very smart,
interesting and sexy.
"I know Japanese is hard for you to understand but please meet me for a date.
Please post your reply in the mail box outside your house. PS I will check the
mailbox every day for your response."
Sharon says: "The letter itself was harmless enough but the implications scared
me. This man knew my name, what I looked like and where I lived.
"Worse, he was going to come to my house every day from then on to check the
mailbox, which was outside my front door. I couldn't bear to be alone in the
house after I knew I was being watched," says Sharon. "I stayed at Helen's for
a few nights before daring to return. To my dismay when I did, there was
another letter."
The second letter read: "Hello Sharon, how are you? I want to meet you for a
date. Do not refuse me. Please post your reply in your mail box. PS I will
check your mailbox every day for your reply."
"I felt utterly sick because I was all alone," recalls Sharon. "Out of my
window I could see nothing but rice paddies, and the house next to me was
vacant. Suddenly, home felt a very long way away."
Sharon's school contacted the police who put two officers on the case. "They
came and questioned me and promised they would make full inquiries but it did
little to calm my nerves.
"Every night I came home with a sense of dread and I was only ever slightly
relieved when I saw my doormat empty. It was like a ticking bomb, I knew there
was another letter on its way, I just didn't know when."
After another week of anxiously looking out the window, letter number three
arrived - again by hand. This time the translation was more sinister.
It read: "Do you like tea or coffee? If I am ten minutes late for our date will
that be acceptable? Are you lonely? Do you cry when you are in your house
alone? Do you prefer sex with English men or Japanese men? Do you like your
boyfriends to be like your background music?"
Sharon says: "What got me about this was that he knew I lived alone and, of
course, I was disgusted that he had written about me in a sexual context. There
was this horrible sense, that other British girls have talked about in
reference to Japanese men, that he somehow felt it was his right to proposition
me in this way. In floods of tears I called the police," explains Sharon.
At her apartment the police fitted a security camera in the front window. But
until the culprit was caught Sharon decided to live at a fellow JET scheme
employee's home in Iwami, a town 20 miles away.
"Every morning I woke up feeling sick. I put on a brave face at school so that
people didn't think it was getting to me, but at the place I was staying, I
often cried. In my diary I wrote that I was on the verge of a nervous
breakdown." At Christmas 2004, Sharon flew home to Inverness where her mother
runs a guest house and spent two weeks with her family. On hearing about her
ordeal, Sharon's mother begged her to stay behind.
"I heard what she was saying but I couldn't afford to. I had a graduate loan
which I was paying off at £700 a month and my job in Japan was my only income.
"Besides, if I stayed home then the stalker would have won, I still had some of
my fighting spirit left and I hoped that when I returned the police would have
good news."
Unfortunately they didn't. Since her departure from the house, there had been
no more letters meaning that the stalker must have been watching the flat and
been aware she was not there.
Sharon decided that since it had been eight weeks since the last letter, things
might be different if she returned to her old routines.
"I took the plunge and after my first night back at school instead of driving
to Helen's, I went to the gym and then drove home. But as I approached I saw a
figure hiding between parked cars watching my house. My heart leapt into my
mouth and the sick feeling in my stomach returned. Was it him?"
Trying to stay calm, Sharon carried on past her house and drove round the
block.
"When I came back round, he had gone again and I breathed a sigh of relief as I
stopped the car. Then - out of nowhere - he appeared beside me at the driver's
side and tried to open the car door. I banged my hand down on the lock and
caught his eye.
"He was short, aged about 40 and slender. But more than anything about his
appearance I was struck by his eyes. His stare was cold and his black eyes
bored into me. I didn't recognise him at all.
"He seemed eerily calm, he was smoking a cigarette and he was only half dressed
because his shirt hung open to the waist. For a second I froze but then he
brought his fist down on the car and I snapped into action.
"I put my foot down and sped off, but I was blinded with fear and the car went
into a skid 100 yards up the road. I lost control and it crashed into a ditch.
"Somehow, I think it was because of the adrenaline coursing through my veins, I
managed to scramble out of the car and ran to the nearest house and began
hammering on the door. I was uninjured but I could see this man walking quickly
towards me. At that moment I genuinely thought he might try to kill me. I cried
out in absolute terror."
Suddenly, a shaft of light opened from the next door. The house she'd been
knocking on was empty but thankfully the neighbours had heard the commotion.
"When I saw the light I just ran to it and away from the man. I tried to
explain what was happening to the bemused couple but I was in such a state I
had to call a friend at the school to translate."
"They looked outside, but by then the man was gone."
The couple drove Sharon to the headmaster's house, where she gave a detailed
description of the stalker to the police and hoped her nightmare would be over
soon.
But it was not so simple. Terrified by her confrontation, Sharon was offered a
room in the headmaster's house, and hardly dared to leave the house except to
go to work in the months that followed.
"I never went anywhere alone and completely stopped socialising," she explains.
"I wanted to fly home but I couldn't as I was tied into a contract with the
school until July. If I broke it they wouldn't uphold their side of the
agreement - to pay my £800 flight back to the UK.
"The next six months were a living hell. I stayed with the headmaster until
March and then the school found me another house. I had double locks fitted on
all the doors and windows, it was the only way I felt safe.
"I had to keep going to work but I was quite thankful of the distraction. At
least when I was giving lessons I knew I was safe.
"At night was the worst. Every time I shut my eyes I pictured that man's cold,
hard eyes. In my new bedroom I planned how I could escape if anything happened
and when I did sleep I would jolt myself awake at the slightest noise. I was
taking sleeping tablets, too, but they didn't really help.
"Every weekend I would make sure I had a friend staying or I would go to them.
I stopped going out in cities. If I went anywhere I always made sure I went
with people and stayed in large groups.
"I phoned the police almost daily but they never found my stalker. So the
nightmare was never over."
Returning home last year, Sharon is now living in London and working as a
writer for a business magazine. The news of Lindsay Hawker's death has
inevitably brought her chilling memories flooding back.
"I was shocked, scared and angry. It could so easily have been me. What if
those neighbours hadn't opened their door that night, what if I hadn't spotted
him when I did? It doesn't bear thinking about.
"I have spoken to many people since my ordeal and since Lindsay's death who
agree that some Japanese men are obsessed with the way Western women look.
"Even slim girls are voluptuous in their eyes, and as we are so much taller
than Japanese men and also seem more unavailable, the differences are
fascinating to them.
"I can't tar all Japanese men with the same brush, but I do believe women
should be wary before embarking on trips to the country, I also think that the
authorities should take it more seriously.
"British girls like myself and Lindsay are in real danger over there. The man who stalked me has never been caught. Could he do the same to another British girl? If he does, she might not be as lucky as I was to escape."
