Woman among 10 allegedly raped by Chinese PhD student in London left “angry and ashamed” after attack, court told
10 February 2025, 18:14 | Updated: 10 February 2025, 21:02
A young woman who claims she was raped by a PhD student in London has told a court she felt “angry and ashamed” after the alleged attack.
Listen to this article
Loading audio...
Chinese national Zhenhao Zou, 27, is on trial accused of raping multiple women after plying them with drugs or alcohol, whilst studying at University College London.
The alleged victim is one of 10 that prosecutors claim he ”stupefied” before raping them while they were either unconscious or barely awake.
Zou is also said to have recorded and taken pictures of the attacks without the women’s consent to keep as “souvenirs”.
Giving evidence at Inner London Crown Court, via videolink from China, the woman told the court she had been out drinking with Zou in Chinatown in central London on September 13 2021.
Read more: Forty per cent more rape victims abandon cases as court delays worsen
Read more: Five men arrested after woman 'raped' in Brighton property overnight
She recalled vomiting and crying on the street, and later awoke to find Zou having sex with her at his flat, before losing consciousness again.
The jury heard how the pair previously had consensual sex at his flat after meeting in August 2021.
She said she “liked him” and wanted a “boyfriend/girlfriend relationship”, but got the impression “he was trying to keep our relationship as a sexual relationship, and I didn’t want that”.
The alleged victim recalled gradually becoming more “angry and ashamed” as time went on and she realised she was unable to consent.
She told the jury she “was struggling with myself” in the days afterwards, saying “I didn't know what happened that night whether it was a sexual assault or not.”
"Later I became more and more angry that he did it to me without my permission”, she said.
James O'Brien: 'You're either in favour of children being able to easily access footage of murders and rapes or you’re against it'
She told the jury she eventually realised "what he did at his place was intentional".
Months later she saw a social media post from another Chinese woman, describing Zou having sex with her while she was drunk.
In a draft of the post read to the court the complainant described her attacker as someone who “appears to be a rather honest, harmless and dull person” whose “tricks” include continuously giving you alcohol before doing “something bad” while you are unconscious.
The post said. “I had no memory at all, not a tiny bit.”
The court has previously heard from the women who made the post, who said she was pushed to drink vodka by Zou at his flat, before he raped her while she was barely conscious.
She claimed when tried to leave he dragged her back by her clothes.
The jury has been shown footage recovered by police from Zou’s devices, which prosecutors say shows him having sex with multiple “clearly unconscious” women.
Zou is on trial accused of 11 counts of rape, 12 charges of possessing an extreme pornographic image, three counts of voyeurism, false imprisonment, and eight counts of possession of a controlled drug with intent to supply.
He has denied all of the charges, claiming the sexual interactions were consensual, drugs and alcohol were consumed by the women voluntarily, and that some of the footage was role play.
The four week trial continues.
