A 61-year-old guitarist was arrested in Japan after years of complaints from his neighbours over loud music that allegedly caused sleep disorders and other health problems.

Kazunori Yokoi from Kyoto’s Nishikyo ward is accused of blasting hard rock and playing his radio at high volume since 2019.

Police said he continued despite repeated warnings from authorities.

Residents had been reporting the noise since around 2017, police said. The disturbance became worse in recent years, according to Kyodo News.

Investigators allege Mr Yokoi placed a radio facing the street so it played round the clock.

He also used an amplifier to play electric guitar early in the morning. Officers recorded noise levels of more than 80 decibels, about as loud as the inside of a moving train.

Authorities said four neighbours, aged between their 60s and 80s, developed health problems because of the prolonged noise. Three reportedly suffered from sleep deprivation and depression. Another developed tinnitus, a constant ringing in the ears.

Officials said repeated warnings failed to stop the noise. He was later arrested on assault charges, police officials said.

Police seized more than 40 guitars from his home, many of them electric. Officers also confiscated amplifiers, CD players and radio cassette players.

According to police, Mr Yokoi admitted making the noise but denied that it had harmed anyone.

“The music was hard rock,” one resident said. “The radio was also playing 24 hours a day, and some residents began complaining of poor health,” one neighbour said.

Another neighbour, quoted by Kyodo News, said: “It was awful because all kinds of sounds were jumbled together all day.”

There was a flurry of reactions to the news of the musician’s arrest.

“Why on earth did it take the police nearly 10 years to act?” one user wrote in comments under a video by Yomiuri Television (YTV) news station.

Another wrote: “People had been filing complaints and reporting this for 10 years, and only now he’s been arrested? Just like that hammer attack case, the authorities are incredibly slow when it comes to dealing with noise complaints.”