At a glance
• Recruitment firm boss Chao Xu jailed for ‘deviant’ sexual offences against women
• Xu is the second Chinese national in recent months to be caught drugging and raping women, in attacks that he filmed
• Xu, dubbed one of London’s worst ever sex offenders, also targeted women on the public transport network
A serial rapist dubbed one of London’s worst ever sexual offenders has been jailed for life for drugging women so that he could prey on them as they lay unconscious.
Chao Xu, a 33-year-old Chinese national, plied victims with a home brew, dubbed the ‘Spring of Life’, which was laced with date rape drugs.
He then spent hours sexually abusing the unconscious women, filming the attacks and taking pictures that he kept as trophies.
Xu, a University of Greenwich masters graduate with his own recruitment firm, used networking parties at his Greenwich apartment to draw in potential victims.
After his arrest, Met Police detectives found hidden cameras in Xu’s apartment which had been used to covertly film women using the toilet and showering at his home.
Cameras were secreted inside an air freshener, disguised as a speaker, and hidden inside a digital clock and packet of sanitary towels, Woolwich crown court heard.
Metropolitan Police detectives also recovered a collection of videos and images showing Xu was also a prolific upskirter on London’s transport network.
On Friday, Judge Christopher Grout sentenced Xu to life in prison with a minimum term of 14 years.
“You are an incredibly dangerous man”, said the judge. “Over a period of three years, you committed serious sexual offences against more than a dozen women.
“You behaviour was calculated and planned, evidenced by the covert recording system you had set-up in your flats and the fact you had incapacitated a number of your victims by drugging them.
“You betrayed the trust of a number of women...in the most appalling ways imaginable.
“The fact you recorded and retained the rapes and sexual assaults of women on your mobile phone rather demonstrates the danger you pose. I’m driven to the conclusion you took enjoyment out of what you did to this victims.
“What your offending behaviour demonstrates is you are a sexual predator who will gain the trust and confidence of women before raping and sexually abusing them.
“I have no doubt at all you are a high risk of sexual and psychological harm to any woman unfortunate enough to be in your company.”
Xu’s barrister, Frida Hussain, told the court Xu is now coming to terms with his crimes, which were “acting out his deviant sexual fantasies”.
Xu moved to the UK in 2015 to complete his university education and went on to complete a Masters in International Law. He was then granted a work visa to remain in this country, establishing a company called UK Talent Online.
The court heard one of the sexual abuse victim woke up as she was being sexually assaulted and filmed by Xu, as he spent more than four-and-a-half hours abusing her.
It was her report to police in June that brought Xu to justice, as it led police to videos of 13 other women being sexual abused or covertly filmed while naked.
Xu had apparently positioned the bodies of some of his victims while they were knocked out, and in one case dressed a woman up in stockings.
“The evidence shows the defendant to be a bold and persistent sexual predator whose offending had steadily become more and more serious”, said prosecutor Catherine Farrelly KC.
“He was so emboldened that he was willing to strike anywhere - at his own home address, at his place of work work and in train stations - and in respect of anyone.”
She told the court: “It appears that no woman was safe around him.
“His offending was mainly planned in a very careful way. He would use hidden cameras to record unsuspecting victims, whether by concealing them in his bathroom at home or by covertly using his mobile telephone to record what he was doing and, even more concerningly, he would use drugs - most likely GHB - to incapacitate some of his victims so he could then abuse them over the course of hours, recording what he was doing as some sort of token.”
Xu pleaded guilty in August to four counts of rape, eight charges of assault by penetration, four counts of sexual assault, two counts of administering substances with intent, four counts of voyeurism, and two counts of upskirting.
The court heard three of Xu’s victims have been identified by police, but there are videos and images of at least 11 other women who have not yet been identified as victims.
One of the identified women said in a victim impact statement: “I don’t think I will ever be the same person again. I’m afraid I will never be able to forget what that man did to me, and how he stole the person I was.”
Another told the court: “He has become a shadow in my heart.”
The charges he has admitted span three years, from 2022 until his arrest in June this year. But the Met said it believes Xu’s criminal activities may be much more widespread as detectives urged other victims to come forward.
“Chao Xu is among the most dangerous and prolific sexual offenders we have ever encountered”, said Detective Superintendent Lewis Sanderson, who led the Met’s investigation.
“His crimes were calculated, sustained, and devastating, spanning years and leaving unimaginable harm in their wake.”
He added: “We believe there are many more victims - potentially hundreds - both in the UK and overseas.
“If you think you may have been targeted by Xu, please come forward and speak with our team. You will be treated with empathy, kindness, and respect, and we will do everything possible to support you.”
The case is strikingly similar to the recent news about Zhenhao Zou, a PhD student at UCL who is now serving a life sentence for drugging and plying with alcohol ten women so that he could rape them.
Zou, another Chinese national, filmed many of his attacks, and the Met is also continuing to appeal for his victims - in London and China - to come forward.
Ms Farrelly said the identity of first victim in the case is currently unknown, and the offences against her in February 2022 emerged from Xu’s collection of videos and images.
Detectives found 37 videos and two images of the half-dressed unconscious victim being sexually abused by Xu, who had also posed her body in different positions.
Xu was linked to the alleged abuse of another woman at his flat in Newington Causeway, south London, because his cat appeared in the slew of images and videos. Xu denied those charges, and the prosecution agreed not to pursue a trial after he pleaded guilty to all other offences.
The court heard Xu had hidden cameras in the bathroom of his Newington Causeway home to capture women as they used the toilet and showered, and he established a similar covert set-up at his new apartment in Greenwich which overlooked the River Thames.
Xu was first charged in June, after a woman who attended a party at one of Xu’s homes reported him to police.
She had drunk some of Xu’s ‘Spring of Life’, and shortly afterwards felt dizzy and needed to lie down.
Even though other people were in the apartment, Xu took his chance to abuse the woman who was slipping in and out of consciousness.
“She remembers the defendant pulling back the cover that was over her and pulling up her dress and trying to take off her tights and her underwear”, said the prosecutor. “She felt dizzy and had no strength, but she tried to pull her dress back down.”
The court heard the woman could feel herself being abused, but “had no strength to fight him off”.
“She felt like she had lost control of her body, and she could not open her eyes. She was lying flat on her back, and she could feel that the defendant was trying to move her onto her side.”
The woman told police Xu became aware that she was awake and pretended to bring her water, but came back instead with a sweet liquid which she suspected was also laced with drugs.
When the woman woke up the next morning, she remembered Xu had been apparently filming and photographing and she confronted him over his behaviour.
Xu, who had a girlfriend, suggested he “might have” touched the woman after having too much to drink, and police were called when he refused to hand over his phone so that images he had taken could be deleted.
The victim believed she had been sexually assaulted, but detectives found 93 photographs and 30 videos on Xu’s phone which revealed she had been raped four times in abuse which took place between 1.55am and 6.30am.
Detectives trawled his home to uncover hidden cameras inside an air freshener and within bathrooms, and a trawl of Xu’s electronic devices revealed his collection of images and videos of women.
He had also made upskirting videos, including at London Bridge station and his WeWork office in Canary Wharf, Woolwich crown court heard.
In one video he sat opposite a woman and filmed up her skirt with his mobile phone.
In another, at London Bridge station, Xu is loitering to select a victim, then follows a woman on to the escalator so that he can film up her skirt.
The Met said its detectives are looking through 6 million messages on Xu’s devices, but already “believe the scale of his offending could be even bigger and are making a direct appeal for any victim-survivors who have not yet been identified to come forward and seek specialist support”.
Suzanne Crane, of the Crown Prosecution Service, added that Xu poses “a serious danger to women”.
Scotland Yard has set up contact portals in English, Mandarin, and Cantonese for potential victims to come forward.
English - https://mipp.police.uk/operation/01MPS25Y21-PO1
Mandarin - https://mipp.police.uk/operation/01MPS25Y21-PO2
Cantonese - https://mipp.police.uk/operation/01MPS25Y21-PO3
