Chinese student jailed for 24 years for raping women in UK and China

LONDON - A Chinese post-graduate student convicted of drugging and raping 10 women in the United Kingdom and China, and suspected of having attacked more, was on June 19 jailed for life by a London court.

London police say they have evidence to suggest he could have targeted more than 50 other women.

Serial rapist Zhenhao Zou, 28 – described in court as “calculated and predatory” – targeted young Chinese women who he invited to his London flat for drinks or to study before drugging and attacking them.

Zou filmed nine of the rapes with hidden or handheld cameras but only two of the 10 victims have ever been identified.

Sentencing him at Inner London Crown Court, Judge Rosina Cottage said there was “no doubt that you planned and executed a campaign of rape” that had caused “devastating and long term effects”.

To the world he appeared “well to do, ambitious and charming”, but this was a mask hiding a “sexual predator”, she added.

He treated his victims “callously” as “sex toys” for his own gratification and his “desire to assert power over women” meant he would be a “risk for an indefinite period”.

Zou, wearing a dark suit and glasses, listened impassively in the dock to the sentence via a translator. He will spend a minimum of 22 years in jail, after accounting for time already spent in custody.

The former engineering student at University College London was found guilty by a jury in March of 28 offences including 11 counts of rape – with two of the counts relating to one woman – three counts of voyeurism and one of false imprisonment.

He was found guilty of raping three women