A former student at Queen’s University in Belfast has appeared in court charged with drugging and raping 10 women.
Zhenhao Zou (27), who is from China, moved to Belfast in 2017 to study at Queen’s before heading to London in 2019 to do a master’s degree and then a PhD at UCL.
Zou is accused of raping the women between September 2019 and May 2023, while he was studying in London. He denies all charges.
Inner London Crown Court on Wednesday heard prosecution claims that he filmed himself raping nine of the women to keep the footage as “souvenirs”.
Zou faces 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.
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.
“Often, he would record himself doing so and during this trial, you will be shown several recordings which the prosecution says are the defendant’s souvenirs of many rapes that he had committed.
“Items that he kept for his own private sexual gratification so that he could watch, at his leisure, his rapes of these women, who he had rendered often unconscious and totally vulnerable to his will.”
Zou sat in the dock wearing a navy blue suit, white shirt, and navy blue tie as the prosecution case opened.
Police have identified two of the alleged victims but not the remaining eight, the court was told.
Ms Farrelly told the jury that one of the identified women contacted police in May 2023 to claim that he had raped her after not allowing her to leave his flat in Elephant and Castle, south-east London.
She did not pursue the allegation at that point but later, in February 2024, investigators found a social media post in which the woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, gave her account of what had happened.
When contacted by detectives, the alleged victim told them that on May 18 2023 Zou invited her to his friend’s flat for a drink, and then back to his apartment.
They were drinking wine together but she began to find him “odd and boring” and wanted to leave, but he would not let her go, the court heard.
She said she was crying on the floor, and when she tried to run away he dragged her back by her clothes, before pushing her to drink a big glass of vodka.
“She told him that she didn’t want the vodka and she just wanted to leave but he told her that she had to stay,” Ms Farrelly told the court.
The woman claims that he raped her while she was unconscious.
Police found video footage of the alleged attack and graphic photographs of the alleged victim in Zou’s possession, the jury was told.
The second alleged victim who has been identified by police, got in contact with the first woman in response to social media posts she had made on LittleRedBook and WeChat giving her account of what had happened.
She had consensual sex with Zou on one occasion in September 2021 then, the following month after a dinner with friends, she found herself alone with him in the street in Chinatown and remembers vomiting.
Her next memory is Zou allegedly raping her at his flat. She told police that she had asked him to stop before she lost consciousness.
It is claimed that Zou had video recordings of him raping a number of other women while they were unconscious and unable to consent.
Footage shows two of them telling him to stop as they struggle to stay awake, it is claimed, with the student telling one of them: “The sound insulation here is very good.”
Zou 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, the judge told jurors.
It is the prosecution case that Zou had the drugs MDMA, ketamine, butanediol and alprazolam that he “could covertly use by slipping them into a drink to stupefy his victims so that he could rape them”.
Zou denies possessing MDMA or ketamine, and says the butanediol and alprazolam were for personal use.
His trial continues on Thursday.
