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The story of a lorry driver who grew up in poverty after being mistakenly switched at birth from an affluent family, and later awarded RM1.05 million in damages, has resurfaced online
According to SCMP, the case resurfaced 12 years after it was settled, following a wave of recent reports about Chinese children who were abducted at a young age, raised in poor families, and later reunited with their wealthy biological parents.
In the 2013 case, a Japanese court ordered Tokyo's San-ikukai Hospital to pay the then 60-year-old man 38 million yen (RM1.05 million) in compensation after discovering that he had been accidentally switched with another baby shortly after birth in 1953..
He only discovered the truth six decades later, by which time both his biological parents had passed away.
He grew up in hardship after the man he believed to be his father died when he was just 2 years old. His home had no electrical appliances, and he had to work part-time jobs just to make it through secondary school.
Old family photos of the lorry driver as a young child.
Image via Handout via SCMPInvestigations later revealed that he was born just 13 minutes before the baby he was accidentally switched with
The truth emerged when his biological brothers suspected their elder brother, who had been swapped with the victim at San-Ikukai Hospital, didn't look like them.
Their suspicions deepened after the elder brother mistreated their father, taking over his inheritance and placing him in a nursing home.
Remembering that their late mother once mentioned a nurse changing their brother's clothes after a hospital bath, the siblings began to suspect a possible baby swap and decided to investigate.
They collected a discarded cigarette butt from their elder brother and sent it for DNA testing in 2009. The results confirmed that he was not biologically related to them.
Judge Masatoshi Miyasaka ruled in favour of the plaintiff, stating that "he was separated from his biological parents immediately after birth" and was entitled to compensation as "he should have been raised in a financially comfortable environment".
The story has since resurfaced following a similar viral case in China involving 27-year-old Xie Qingshuai, whose biological father, a multimillionaire, reportedly welcomed him home with three fully furnished apartments as a reunion gift.
Investigations of decades-old hospital documents helped reveal who the lorry driver's parents really are.
Image via Handout via SCMP