Lucie would have been 40 today.. that monster must never be set free
Fears that rapist who dismembered Brit could soon be eligible for parole
OBSESSION
Her body was found seven months later in a seafront cave a few hundred yards from the home of Obara, a millionaire businessman who had an obsession with Western women.
Lucy had been cut into eight and her head was encased in concrete.
Obara was finally jailed in 2008, after being acquitted the year before.
But the fact he was not convicted of murder meant he was spared the death sentence and instead got a life term, which under Japanese law is said to be a minimum 20 years.
But taking into account the seven years he spent in custody during his long trial, he has been incarcerated for 18 years – so could put in an application for parole in less than two.
Speaking ahead of Lucie’s birthday today, Tim said he does not feel anger but “intense sorrow” when he thinks of his daughter’s sick attacker, who he described as “just a monster”.
He said: “In court he avoided looking in our direction. He was constantly in his papers or looking at his counsel. He approached it in a business-like way with files and papers which is kind of ridiculous.”
Police probing Lucie’s disappearance found 2,000 video tapes of Obara raping scores of women he drugged with Rohypnol. If they woke, he would use chloroform to subdue them.
As a result he was convicted of eight counts of rape, as well as his role in the death of Australian backpacker Carita Ridgway in 1992, who died from complications from chloroform. Tim, 65, is proud that Lucie became a “heroine” for Obara’s other victims.
He told the Mirror: “It’s exactly what she’d have done in any other circumstance, to think of others first.”
When his daughter went missing, property developer Tim flew to Japan in a high-profile campaign to find her.
Time has not lessened the pain of losing his sharp and funny daughter.
He said: “Every day you think about what she’d be doing now, whether she would be married, whether I’d have grandchildren by her now. It leaves a constant chasm of emptiness when you lose someone young like that.” Although the former British Airways stewardess had not settled on a longterm job, her father is convinced that she would have found her niche and built a successful career.
He also believes Lucie of Sevenoaks, Kent, who always liked children and babysat regularly, would be a mum by now, raising a family of her own.
He said: “The word memory doesn’t really work for Lucie, because it reflects to the past. Whereas I just think about her and she’s around us all the time. So many people would like to hear that you’re getting better.
“You hear this word closure. But it just doesn’t exist in these sorts of
Closure just doesn’t exist. As a father you don’t want to put that burden down
TIM BLACKMAN DAD OF LUCIE, FOUND DISMEMBERED IN JAPAN cases. The notion that you just shut the door on that part of your life just doesn’t happen. As a father you don’t want to put that burden down.”
He said the marriage of Lucie’s brother Rupert, 34, last month was a “fantastically happy and utterly wonderful” occasion, but that “Lucie was in our minds all day”.
Sadly time has not healed the rift between Tim and his ex-wife, Lucie’s mum Jane Steare, who hit out at him for accepting £420,000 from an associate of Obara’s, under the Japanese practice of offering “atonement”. Years of flying across the world fighting for his daughter had taken a toll on his 13 finances and he used the rest to establish the Lucie Blackman Trust.
Tim, who now lives on the Isle of Wight with second wife Josephine, finds strength knowing the charity helps over 600 families a year who have a missing loved one abroad. He said: “It’s the only NGO that helps families abroad in these situations.”
Their latest project, to mark Lucie’s 40th, is a retreat on the Isle of Wight for families of the missing to provide respite from the pressures they face.
Tim is raising funds for the last £120,000 of the £650,000 they need. For information see Luciesretreat.org