A Japanese piano teacher has been arrested for the murder of her virtual husband after an abrupt but messy online divorce.

The 43-year-old from Kyushu province in southern Japan faces a maximum sentence of five years in jail if she is found guilty of killing off her digital partner.

She is accused of hacking into the profile of a 33-year-old office worker from Sapporo 620 miles away, whose avatar on the Maple Story computer game was married to her character until he unexpectedly demanded a divorce.

The spurned make-believe wife was so angry at being jilted that she logged into the game using her partner’s password and destroyed the character that he had spent a year creating.

She was arrested at home in Miyazaki yesterday on suspicion of illegal access on a computer and manipulating electronic data, according to police in Sapporo where she is being detained. The woman has not been formally charged. If convicted she could be jailed or fined up to £3,100.

An official in northern Sapporo reported that she confessed to the crime when questioned, allegedly telling police: “I was suddenly divorced, without a word of warning. That made me so angry.”

The woman had not plotted any revenge in the real world, the official said.

Players in Maple Story raise and manipulate digital images called avatars that represent themselves, while engaging in relationships, social activities and fighting against monsters and other obstacles.

Avatars and accounts on games such as Maple Story, World of Warcraft or Second Life can be worth hundreds of pounds as people attempt to cut out the laborious process of creating their own characters.

There have been reports of cottage industries in Asia where low-paid workers are employed to spend all day inhabiting the virtual worlds to create avatars that can then be sold online.

Some games also use virtual currencies, which in the online games-enthusiast market, come to have a real value as they are bought and sold on websites all over the world.

Tokyo police have previously arrested a 16-year-old boy on charges of fraudulently obtaining virtual currency worth £223,495 in an interactive role playing game by manipulating another player’s portfolio using a stolen ID and password.

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