'I will never forgive him': Victims recall trauma as serial rapist Zou Zhenhao jailed in UK

LONDON: Three women who were drugged and raped by serial offender Zou Zhenhao described enduring trauma, feelings of powerlessness and mental health struggles in testimonies read out in court, where Zou was sentenced to life with a minimum of 24 years in prison.

Their victim impact statements were included as part of proceedings at the Inner London Crown Court on Thursday (Jun 19), ahead of Zou’s sentencing.

Zou, 28, who remained stone-faced throughout the hearing, was convicted of drugging and raping 10 women in the UK and China, though British police have identified at least 50 others from video footage he took during those assaults.

Twenty-four more women have now made themselves known to London’s Metropolitan Police Service, and further charges could follow.

Zou, who is from the Chinese city of Dongguan, had been studying for a PhD at University College London since 2019 before his arrest in London last year.

A jury on Thursday heard how he met women using online platforms and dating apps over a period of years, inviting them to his home under the guise of studying or to have drinks.

Zou, who preyed on fellow university students and other women, would offer them alcohol laced with incapacitating drugs that rendered his victims unconscious and confused.

Three of his victims volunteered to write assessments of the impact those rapes had on them.

"COMPLETELY POWERLESS"

The first woman recounted her experience of him raping her, saying she managed to “open her eyes for a few seconds during the sexual assault” and felt him thrusting against her.

She recalled being “completely powerless, and could only use all her strength to demand he stop, which he did not”.

“His face in that moment will clearly stay in my mind forever. Even as I type these words, waves of nausea and disgust keep overwhelming me,” she said.

She noted how the incident had affected her to this day, saying “the memories trigger migraines and an overwhelming urge to scrub myself clean”.

“Words cannot fully capture the emotions I felt then or the pain I carry now. Whatever happened that night is etched into my soul forever. I will never forgive him,” she added.

A second woman wrote how she could not sleep in the days after the incident, “no matter what she did”, as the events of what happened replayed in her mind.

She found that her anxiety became overwhelming and she was unable to make any decisions.

She described how for “a long time” she “could not socialise with others normally” and that before the attack, she “was not aware a human could do such cruel things”.

A third woman who reached out to police said she had deliberately tried to forget the attack, but when she saw the police reports after he was arrested, “her body responded faster than her conscious mind”.

She wrote of having to spend 3,000 yuan (US$417) on sexually transmitted disease (STD), human papillomavirus (HPV), and HIV testing, and she had worried for three “agonising” months over contracting a disease from Zou after he raped her.

She also described how “for years, nightmares haunted” her.

She was “unable to be alone after dark” and “developed insomnia and bipolar disorder,” turning to “frenzied self-harm during breakdowns”.

This, she explained, had produced “endless self-loathing”, and that “to this day” she “feels gagged by shame”.

“HIGHLY MANIPULATIVE”

Zou was found guilty of 28 offences in total, including multiple counts of voyeurism, possession of extreme pornographic images and possession of a drug to commit a sexual offence.

A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police said detectives downloaded over 1,600 hours of footage from Zou’s phones and laptops, as well as around nine million messages, representing “one of the biggest cases” its digital forensics lab had dealt with.

Investigators reportedly spent months trawling through those messages, having translated them from Chinese into English, in order to understand Zou’s pattern of offending.

The prosecution said that Zou was calculated and predatory in nature, undertook a high degree of premeditated planning, and blamed his victims.

In sentencing remarks, Judge Rosina Cottage called him a highly manipulative man who “told (women) they would have no choice but to comply, even when they begged him to stop”.

She recalled how during one video taken by Zou, which was shown to the jury, one of his victims could be heard “crying out for her mother again and again” as he repeatedly penetrated her.

In justifying her sentence of at least 24 years' jail, the judge said she believed Zou posed a “significant risk of further offences … long into the future”.

That sentence is the minimum term Zou must serve in custody, but he could spend the rest of his life in prison if a parole board finds he is unfit for release after serving 24 years.