A waste collection worker and his 14-year-old junior high schoolgirl daughter have been arrested for the theft of 20 iron manhole covers, the man saying he needed the money from selling them to live, police said.

Kazuhisa Shibuya, the 43-year-old waste collection worker from Saitama, and his daughter admit to the allegations.

"We needed money to get by and I was going to sell the manhole covers to another company. I'm really sorry I got my daughter involved," Shibuya told the police.

Police said that Shibuya and his daughter, who cannot be named for legal reasons, stole the 20 manhole covers, with a combined value of about 60,000 yen, from a condominium in Tokyo's Setagaya-ku on the night of March 19.

Shibuya removed the covers and carried them to his small truck, where his daughter stacked them into piles, police said. A security guard noticed what the father and daughter were doing and alerted the police.

Soon after her arrest, the daughter was taken to a childcare center, where she told officials that the family was always struggling financially and that she couldn't refuse to help her father even though she knew she was doing wrong.

Copyright 2005-2006 THE MAINICHI NEWSPAPERS. All rights reserved. Mainichi features the best news in Japan, current news in Japan, Japan news in English, Japan business news, Tokyo Japan news, and Japan entertainment news. Mainichi News is syndicated in accordance with editorial regulations: personal and noncommercial purposes.

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