The mother of an Irish woman murdered in Japan has spoken of her anger at the killer’s imminent release.
“He's counting days till his freedom when he gets on with his life and we still have to carry this burden every single day,” tragic Nicola Furlong’s mother Angela said last night.
Speaking exclusively to RTE Prime Time ahead of the release of the Wexford student’s American murderer, Ms Furlong also said the family is still haunted by her murder 10 years on.
Mrs Furlong spoke to Prime Time ahead of the release of American musician Richard Hinds, who has been locked up ever since he strangled Nicola, 21, in Tokyo in May 2012.
Although Hinds was convicted of murder, legislation in Japan means that he only has to serve 10 years in jail for that crime because he was only 19 at the time of the killing.
The age of adulthood in Japan is 20 and Hinds could have walked after just five years in prison – but he has never expressed any remorse and must do his full sentence, which comes to an end in just over three weeks.
And Mrs Furlong, who attended Hinds’ trial in Japan, told Prime Time that she was angry about his lack of remorse for killing Nicola.
She said: “The fact that he showed no remorse.
“He's just a horrible, nasty person to do that to a little girl.
“The day he walked past me in court, when he had been sentenced, that he had to count 10 years.
“We were counting days without Nic and now he's counting days till his freedom when he gets on with his life and we still have to carry this burden every single day."
Nicola had been studying at a university north of Tokyo on a one-year DCU study abroad programme when she was strangled by musician Richard Hinds in 2012.
On May 23 rd that year she took the train to Tokyo to go to a concert with her friend. She was looking forward to the night out, but also to the end of her Japanese studies and returning to Ireland, Mrs Furlong said.
She told RTE: "She had texted me to say that she was getting ready to go to the concert.
“She was really excited about it. In 10 more weeks, she'd be home to us. She was so full of life and loved life.
“She was just so bubbly. She just drew people to her, you know, she was so happy, happy go lucky little girl.”
That was the last the family heard from her and a few hours later she was dead.
Nicola and her friend met Richard Hinds and his friend, James Blackston after the concert, when they asked for directions.
Hinds and Blackston were in Japan working with a touring musician. The two men showed Nicola and her friend the way to the Shibuya district. They later drank and danced with them at the Scramble Café and Bar.
But both women became unconscious after the pair gave them a Tequila shot.
The men then took the women in a taxi and its CCTV recorded them speaking excitedly about what they planned to do sexually to the women.
The women were carried from the taxi unconscious into a hotel where they were brought to room in wheelchairs.
James Blackston brought Nicola’s friend to his room. He was later jailed for sexually assaulting her and for a separate sexual assault weeks earlier on another woman who also said she lost consciousness after he gave her a drink.
Hinds then strangled Nicola in his room.
Mrs Furlong was at work in Wexford when she heard the news that the eldest of her three daughters was dead, she said last night.
She said:"I just fell to the ground. There was a noise came out of me, it wasn't human. It was just a shock. It was horrendous.
“I'll never forget that morning, at that time we didn't know the circumstances surrounding it. When you hear of an accident you automatically think of a road traffic accident, and I was trying to think, was she on her bike?
“I then had to go up to Gorey and tell my parents that Nicola was gone. We didn't know that the circumstances for about two days."
Now Hinds is set for his freedom and the Furlong family say they will never get over Nicola’s murder.
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