WEB EXCLUSIVE

A BOLTON man has been jailed for 13 years for murdering his Japanese girlfriend.

Father-of-four Paul Jason Shimmin strangled Shoko Kawanobe, aged 25, at their apartment in Yokohama on September 27, 2007.

Shimmin, aged 36, formerly from Horwich, was found guilty of murder the Yokohama District Court after a trial.

His defence lawyers argued that Kawanobe had accidentally suffocated with her face buried in her pillow while asleep.

But Judge Kenichi Kurita rejected the argument as "an unreasonable claim and unacceptable."

Describing the crime as “short-sighted and violent,” Judge Kurita said that Shimmin had shown no remorse and had offered no apology.

Prosecutors had sought a 17-year prison term.

A spokesman for the British Embassy in Tokyo said: “Lawyers for British national, Mr Paul Shimmin, have confirmed that he has received a sentence of 13 years after being found guilty of murder.”

Shimmin had been living with Ms Kawanobe in Yokohama, 17 miles from Tokyo, on Japan’s main island of Honshu.

He is believed to have met her in Britain and was living with her in a flat, having travelled to Japan using a temporary visa.

He contacted police on September 27, 2007, to say he had found Ms Kawanobe dead when he had arrived home.

He said he did not know how she had died, but he was arrested three days later because police could find no evidence of anyone else having got into the flat.

Shimmin was believed to have been living in Northern Ireland before he moved to Japan.

His family in Bolton last night declined to comment on the sentence.

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