Predator who drugged and raped 10 women facing ‘very long' jail term

Independent

4 hours ago

A Chinese PhD student who could be one of the UK's worst sex offenders is due to be sentenced for drugging and raping 10 women in London and China.
Zhenhao Zou, 28, was convicted of the harrowing attacks involving two women who have been identified and another eight who have yet to be traced.
He kept a trophy box of women's belongings and filmed nine of the attacks, with jurors in the case forced to watch the disturbing footage.
At the end of his trial in March, Metropolitan Police detectives said they fear he could have targeted more than 50 more potential victims.
More than 20 women contacted the force following publicity in the media around Zou's trial to say they think they may have been attacked by him.
When he was convicted, Judge Rosina Cottage said he is a 'dangerous and predatory sexual offender' and warned him he faces a 'very long' jail term when he is sentenced on Thursday.
After a month-long trial, Zou, who was most recently living in Elephant and Castle, south-east London, was found guilty of raping three women in London and another seven in China between September 2019 and May 2023.
He was convicted of 11 counts of rape, with two of the offences relating to one victim.
Zou was also convicted of three counts of voyeurism, 10 of possession of an extreme pornographic image, one of false imprisonment and three of possession of a controlled drug with intent to commit a sexual offence, namely butanediol.
Prosecutors said Zou appears to be 'a smart and charming young man' but is in fact 'a persistent sexual predator, a voyeur and a rapist'.
He comes from a wealthy family, and had enough money to afford a Rolex, a wardrobe full of designer clothes, and cosmetic procedures including a hair transplant and facial surgery, while paying thousands a month in rent living in London as an international engineering student.
Police found hundreds of hours of disturbing videos and photos that he kept, around half of which are thought to have been filmed in the UK and half in China.
Zou, who also used the name Pakho online, befriended fellow Chinese students on WeChat and dating apps, before inviting them for drinks and drugging them at his flats in London or an unknown location in China.
The student first moved to Belfast in 2017 to study mechanical engineering at Queen's University before heading to London in 2019 to do a master's degree and then a PhD at UCL.
Investigators first charged Zou in January 2024, but waited for more than a year until he had been convicted before making public appeals for further victims to come forward.
His crimes began to be uncovered in November 2023, when a woman went to police to allege that she had been attacked by Zou.
There was not enough evidence to bring a criminal charge over her claim, but when Zou's phone was seized officers found disturbing videos of him raping unconscious women, and pipettes and sedating drugs in his flat.
One of the two victims who has been identified by police told the jury she was raped after Zou pushed her to drink excessive amounts of alcohol and would not let her leave his flat in Elephant and Castle in May 2023.
The second, who is now living in China, said she was also raped by Zou, in his student flat near Russell Square in October 2021, when she was unconscious.
The case has chilling parallels with Reynhard Sinaga, 41, who was jailed for life in January 2020 at Manchester Crown Court after being found guilty of 159 counts of sexual offences against 48 different men.
He also befriended his victims and invited them back to his flat, before drugging and sexually assaulting them.
There was also the case of serial killer Stephen Port, who received a whole life term after raping and murdering four men with overdoses of the sedative drug GHB, and drugging and sexually assaulting seven others who survived.
UK detectives have said the Chinese authorities were 'responsive and helpful' over the investigation into Zou, although no properties where he lived in China have been searched even though many of his crimes took place on Chinese soil.
After Zou's trial they began discussions with China about whether social media appeals to potential victims could be made on WeChat and Little Red Book, which are more commonly used in the country.
Zou was convicted of rapes that he committed in China in a UK court because foreign nationals living in Britain can be convicted of crimes committed abroad if the act is an offence in both countries.