Jury tears as videos of alleged rapes by Chinese PhD student played in court
Jury tears as videos of alleged rapes by Chinese PhD student played in court
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A juror broke down in tears as videos said to show a Chinese PhD student raping a woman were shown in court for the first time. Zhenhao Zou, 27, is accused of raping ten women after plying them with drink or drugs, and taking videos of the alleged attacks as “souvenirs“.
Zou, a PhD student in engineering at University College London, denies the allegations, insisting all the women consented to sex and some were “role-playing“ in the videos. On Thursday, prosecutors began to play the cache of videos which were recovered from Zou’s devices after his arrest in January last year.
Jurors were visibly upset when the first piece of footage was played, showing Zou allegedly raping a woman as she appeared to struggle to stay awake and told him to stop. One member of the jury broke down in tears as the clips were shown at Inner London crown court.
Judge Rosina Cottage KC told the jury before the trial began that they would have to watch “difficult“ footage, to reach a verdict on whether the videos show Zou raping the women. She also ordered that numbers of people in court should be strictly limited.
In the first set of clips, Zou is seen with what appears to be scratches on his back, jurors were told. The defendant, who is following court proceedings with the help of an interpreter, remained emotionless in the dock as the clips were played. In the first clip, Zou can be seen positioning the camera to point at a naked woman who is lying motionless on a bed in a room where the blind is drawn before he has sex with her, jurors were told.
