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Missing Lucie: Chronicle editor on Japanese TV

Japanese TV journalists have been to the Sevenoaks Chronicle to get the low-down on how the British media is covering the disappearance of Lucie Blackman.

Lucie, from Sevenoaks, went missing while working as a hostess in bars in Japan.

The Japanese press failed to pick up the story with any conviction until the British media circus rolled into their country and now the case is getting prime airtime and front page treatment there as well as in the UK.

Chronicle editor Roger Perkins was interviewed in front of the cameras for TV Asahi as part of an evening news broadcast.

He told Japanese viewers how locals have reacted to Lucie’s disappearance and why they are so interested.

Roger told HoldTheFrontPage: “I brought up the front page we carried the previous week featuring her disappearance.

“They were particularly interested in why the British media had run with the story to the extent it has – and of course now Robin Cook and Tony Blair have been involved too.

“It got only a few column inches in the Japanese press when she first went missing but because of all the British interest they have taken it up and raised its profile there.”

There is speculation among the Japanese media that The Mob may be involved – as Japanese organised crime mafia controls many of the bars where Lucie would have been working.

There is also the possibility she has been taken by a cult because of a phone call to her friend soon after she vanished, explaining she had joined a group and no-one would see her again.

Roger said: “I also told the viewers that many people here had youngsters who were travelling the world – and working to pay their travel on their gap year between school and university so it was an interesting story from that point of view.”

The headquarters of TV Asahi is in the Roppongi district, the same location as the Casablanca bar where Lucie was working.

According to the Asahi’s UK editor, the Japanese police have received a great deal of information about Miss Blackman but none of it has been revealed.

The Chronicle is planning to run an exclusive interview with Lucie’s mother, Jane, this week.

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