Chinese student ‘appears smart and charming but is a persistent sexual predator’
Chinese student ‘appears smart and charming but is a persistent sexual predator’
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A Chinese PhD student accused of drugging and raping 10 women appears to be “a smart and charming young man” but is in fact “a persistent sexual predator, a voyeur and a rapist”, a jury has been told. Zhenhao Zou, 27, appeared at Inner London Crown Court on Wednesday to face trial for 11 counts of rape against the women as well as three counts of voyeurism, 12 of possession of an extreme pornographic image, one of false imprisonment and eight of possession of a controlled drug with intent to supply.
Those substances are alleged to be MDMA, butanediol, ketamine and alprazolam. The student, who moved to Belfast in 2017 to study at Queen’s University before coming to London in 2019 to do a master’s degree and then a PhD at UCL, denies all the charges.
He is accused of filming himself attacking two of the alleged victims in London and the other eight in an unknown location in China between September 2019 and May 2023. Opening the prosecution case on Wednesday, Catherine Farrelly KC told jurors: “To the outside world, he undoubtedly presents as a smart and charming young man.
“However, as you know from the indictment in this case, the document which contains 35 separate criminal allegations against him, the prosecution say that he is also a persistent sexual predator; a voyeur and a rapist. “The prosecution case at this trial is that he would meet women, he would stupefy them, either with drink or drugs, and, once they were significantly under the influence of those drinks or drugs, he would then rape them.
