Key events in the case of murdered teacher Lindsay Hawker

Japanese prosecutors charged Tatsuya Ichihashi today with the rape and murder of British teacher Lindsay Hawker in March 2007.

2006

* October - Leeds University graduate Lindsay Ann Hawker, 22, from Brandon, near Coventry, travels to Japan to teach English with the Nova language school in Koiwa, Tokyo.

2007

* March 25 - Miss Hawker gives an English class to Tatsuya Ichihashi in a coffee shop in Tokyo. After the class, at 10am Lindsay returns to Ichihashi's apartment in Ichikawa, east of Tokyo, telling the taxi to wait for her while she nips inside the flat. After seven minutes, the taxi driver leaves.

* March 26 - Staff at the language school call her father Bill to say that she has missed two days of teaching without letting them know.

Police arrive at Ichihashi's apartment, but he bolts past them and runs away. Police chasing Ichihashi on foot once more see him running through the city streets but he escapes again.

Japanese police break into his flat, and find Miss Hawker's body in a bath on the balcony.

* March 27 - Miss Hawker's father Bill and her boyfriend Ryan Garside travel to Tokyo to formally identify the murdered teacher.

* April 26 - Hundreds of mourners, including Japanese Ambassador Yoshiji Nogami, gather to pay their last respects at a service for Miss Hawker in Coventry.

* May 16 - Miss Hawker's parents make an appeal for help on the BBC Six O'Clock News.

* May 23 - Margaret Beckett, then Foreign Secretary, travels to Japan and appeals to the Japanese media to devote more coverage to the murder.

* June 19 - Warwickshire Police fly to Tokyo to help the family liaise with the Japanese police team.

* June 28 - Bill and Julia Hawker make a renewed appeal on Japanese TV for help in finding their daughter's killer.

* August 13 - The family launch an email campaign, circulating a letter titled Don't Forget Lindsay Hawker and asking the reader for help to catch her killer and to forward it to as many people as possible.

* August 22 - Bill and Julia Hawker appear on ITV's show This Morning, saying they believe their daughter may have been drugged before being brutally murdered at Ichihashi's flat.

* September 25 - To mark the six-month anniversary of her death, Bill Hawker hands out leaflets bearing Ichihashi's face at Heathrow airport, asking travellers to and from Tokyo for help in tracking him down.

2008

* March 22 - Miss Hawker's family fly to Japan to appeal for new leads on the first anniversary of her death.

2009

* January 16 - A private detective in the Philippines claims that Ichihashi is living in the country, having been based on the island of Cebu before moving to Manila. The detective says Ichihashi travelled to the country on his own passport, yet had not been stopped by police.

* March 21 - The family return to Tokyo on the second anniversary of her death. They launch life-size talking cut-outs of Ichihashi to raise the profile of the manhunt.

* November 4 - Reports emerge that Ichihashi has undergone plastic surgery to change his appearance. Miss Hawker's family appeal to police to tell them what has happened.

* November 9 - Local newspapers report Ichihashi worked for a construction company in Osaka for 13 months under a false name. He quit on October 11 after saving a large amount of cash and spent the money on cosmetic surgery, it is claimed. His fingerprints are later found in a dormitory for workers.

* November 10 - Ichihashi is arrested by Japanese police at a ferry terminal in Osaka, western Japan, possibly before attempting to board a ferry to Okinawa, a chain of islands at Japan's southern tip.

* December 2 - Ichihashi is charged with abandoning Miss Hawker's corpse.

* December 23 - Prosecutors also charge Ichihashi with the rape and murder of the British teacher.