An alleged victim of a Chinese PhD student who is accused of drugging and raping 10 women told police that she felt “disgusting” after waking up at his London flat, a trial heard.
On Friday, jurors at Inner London Crown Court were shown a police interview where the woman claimed that Zhenhao Zou raped her after not allowing her to leave his flat in Elephant and Castle, south-east London, in May 2023.
She told Detective Constable Emily Nice in February 2024 that they were drinking wine together but she began to find him “odd” and wanted to leave but he would not let her go, the court heard.
The woman said that at one point she was crying on the floor, and when she tried to leave he dragged her back by her clothes, before pushing her to drink vodka, jurors were told.
Zhenhao Zou is on trial at Inner London Crown Court (Elizabeth Cook/PA)
She told the officer of feeling “hopeless” and “out of control” and that she was made to stay in the flat, jurors heard.
The woman said she asked Zou for 100,000 in Chinese currency (£11,000) to stay 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, the court was told.
She claims that he raped her while she was unconscious.
Asked to recall how she felt, the woman told Dc Nice: “I felt very disgusting but I had no strength to fight him off.”
During the interview, she added: “I can’t even remember when this finished because I had already passed out.”
The woman told the officer that she was feeling “dizzy” and “drowsy” during the evening.
Police found video footage of the alleged rape filmed on a camera placed by his bed and graphic photographs of the alleged victim in Zou’s possession, the jury was told.
In the footage, played in court, the woman can be heard screaming and appears to try and get up from the bed on several occasions but the defendant pushes her back down each time, prosecutor Catherine Farrelly KC said.
Asked how she felt after the evening, the alleged victim said: “I could not sleep, I could not eat, I felt disgusting… physically it was much worse than mentally.”
The woman is one of two of Zou’s 10 alleged victims who have been identified by police.
Zou, 27, is accused of drugging and raping 10 women in total, including three in London and seven in China, jurors heard.
Prosecutors say he filmed nine of the alleged victims, the footage of which was played in court on Thursday.
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.