As discussed yesterday, today was Takafumi Horie’s biggest day in a long list of big days in court. The media circus / trial finally drew to a conclusion. And this morning he was sentenced to two and a half years.

In my opinion, any pretence that this was simply the prosecution of a wrongdoer was finally blown away by the fact that there was no suspension of the sentence as is usual in this kind of case - he’ll be behind bars tonight.

When the authorities announced his arrest as part of a ‘drive against business corruption’, the naive amongst us awaited the long list of arrests to follow. Which never came. Either corruption was not so prevalent in Japanese business (ahem) or Horie was being taken down not so much for what he did, but more for the way he did it, for who he was and for what he represented.

This, coupled with his unrepentant, combative attitude, has contributed to the unsuspended sentence, I’m sure.

Unsurprisingly, he intends to appeal. Irrespective of that, the example has now been set. You do things according to the established order (that’s not to say ‘play by the rules’, as that’s not the same thing at all), or you’ll be set upon.

I’m not saying that he doesn’t deserve what he got. But if you’re really interested in punishing the crime, then Livedoor can only be the tip of a sizeable iceberg. To leave the rest of it alone is a far larger crime.