A British woman has been sentenced to six years in a Hong Kong maximum security prison after a court found she fabricated a rape allegation and tried to extort £100,000 from the man she accused.
Isabel Rose, 26, from Hackney, east London, was convicted of blackmail and perverting the course of public justice following a trial at the District Court in Hong Kong. Judge Adriana Tse said it was "crystal clear" that Rose demanded £100,000 (HK$1.05 million) from the man, referred to in court only as X.
“Brit woman jailed for six years in Hong Kong after false rape report and blackmail demand.”
Rose had travelled to Hong Kong in early 2024 to visit X, a UK banker she met while travelling in Thailand. She claimed he raped her in the early hours of February 1, 2024, at his apartment in the affluent Mid-Levels area. X was arrested on suspicion of rape, but two days later Rose was arrested on suspicion of blackmail.
Prosecutors alleged she filed a false rape report and demanded payment from X. The man was never charged. During the trial, Judge Tse described X as an "honest, credible and reliable witness", while labelling Rose "dishonest, uncredible and unreliable", according to Hong Kong Free Press.
Rose’s lawyer pleaded for leniency, citing her lack of previous convictions and her status as a foreigner in Hong Kong, but the judge rejected the plea. Rose had been unable to work or leave the region for two years before her trial.
Judge Tse handed down a starting sentence of five years for blackmail and three years for perverting justice, with one year to be served consecutively, totalling six years. Rose was sent to Tai Lam Correctional Institution, Hong Kong’s oldest maximum security women’s prison.
