Boy meets girl at an ice cream parlour. He drives her to his home on his motorbike, and tries to kiss her. She rejects his advances and runs crying from the house.

If the story stopped there, it would hardly be news. But when the man is a 38-year-old US marine, the girl a 14-year-old Okinawan schoolgirl, and the allegation is that he subsequently raped her, it becomes an international crisis.