A woman says a PhD student raped her while she was unconscious after having forcibly stopped her from leaving his flat. The alleged victim told Inner London Crown Court that Zhenhao Zou pulled her her back by her clothes when she tried to leave his home in Elephant and Castle on May 18, 2023. She claimed the 27-year-old, from China, then pushed her to drink vodka and later dragged her into his bedroom, where she at some point passed out.

The woman said he then raped her. Police later found video footage of the alleged rapeon a camera by Zou’s bed and graphic photographs of the alleged victim in his possession, the court heard. The woman is one 10 alleged victims Zou is accused of drugging and raping – three in London and seven in China. She and one other are, however, the only two who have been identified by police. Last week jurors were shown footage of a police interview where she told a detective she and Zou had been drinking wine together at the flat, but she began to find him ‘odd’ and wanted to leave.

She said he refused to let her go, leaving her sobbing on the floor at one point. The woman said she asked Zou for 100,000 in Chinese currency (£11,000) in exchange for staying but told the detective that she did not expect the defendant to pay and that this did not allow him to have sex with her. Giving evidence today, she told jurors that the money was ‘compensation’, which he agreed to pay while they were drinking together.

Asked what the money was for, she said: ‘He forced me to stay at his place that night after a great amount of alcohol, my emotion was not stable. ‘So under the extreme loss of my emotional control, an agreement we had was either you let me go or give me money so that I can stay.’. But, reiterating what she told the detective, she said this agreement did not give him consent to any sexual activities with her.

The following day, on May 19, the woman sent Zou a message saying her bag was still at his flat. He replied, ‘I had too much to drink’ and either ‘I did something wrong’ or ‘it was wrong’ (depending on the translation) and ‘can we discuss this situation when we meet later’, prosecutor Catherine Farrelly KC said. The woman replied and said ‘think about what you have done’, the prosecution added, before asking her what she was referring to.

The woman told jurors: ‘What I was referring is he forced me to stay at his place and after a lot of alcohol he still wouldn’t allow me to go and dragged me into his room and raped me.’. The woman then sent messages to Zou on May 20, saying ‘you are so disgusting’ and ‘you should feel guilty for what you did’. Asked by Ms Farrelly what she meant by that, the woman said: ‘After I was drunk he raped me and not allowing me to go home’.

Also on May 20 the woman sent Zou a message saying ‘now I just want to expose you’. Asked in court what she was referring to, she said ‘what I meant was that I was going to expose him but without mentioning his name nor his picture’. She added that she later ‘exposed my experience’ by writing about it on online groups. The woman said she was hoping to ‘receive some support in making me feel better’.

On May 21 the woman sent Zou a message saying she had called the police. The woman’s phone call to police, made at 4.21am on May 21, was played out loud to the court. She told the court she decided to call the police as she ‘hadn’t been sleeping for three days’. Prosecutors say Zou filmed nine of the alleged victims, the footage of which was played in court last week. The student moved to Belfast in 2017 to study at Queen’s University before heading to London in 2019 to do a master’s degree and then a PhD at UCL.

Zou denies 11 counts of rape 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. He will argue that the sexual interactions were consensual, that drugs and alcohol were consumed by the women voluntarily, and that some of the footage captured involved role playing, jurors were told.

The trial continues. Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk. For more stories like this, check our news page. Arrow MORE: Girl, 14, guilty of attempted murder after stabbing two teachers and a pupil. Arrow MORE: Man arrested after Nando’s waitress was slapped round the face with a plate. Arrow MORE: Iran spy Daniel Khalife branded a ‘dangerous fool’ as he’s jailed for 14 years.