HONG KONG - A Hong Kong court sentenced a U.K. woman to six years in prison on Wednesday after convicting her of blackmail and preventing justice for untruthfully reporting she had been raped by a banker. Isabel Rose, 26, met the British man involved in the case in Thailand before linking up with him again in Hong Kong in January 2024, sharing a bed for a while, according to court documents. The following month she had filed a rape complaint against the man, a banker working in the Chinese finance hub, leading to his arrest. The accused man was subsequently released without charge, and instead Rose was charged with blackmail and perverting the course of justice. A district court issued a guilty verdict in March. On Wednesday, judge Adriana Noelle Tse Ching handed Rose a six-year prison term, saying she had taken advantage of the man’s “kindness, naivety, friendship and romantic interest” to blackmail him. During the course of their acquaintance, after the man transferred 5,000 pounds (around US$6,700) to her, Rose began asking for “escalating amounts of money,” according to court documents. Seeking to extort up to 100,000 pounds from the man, she then filed a police report alleging rape, prosecutors said. The court has concluded Rose “used the romantic connection to manipulate” him. Hong Kong’s security bureau said in a letter to media in April that Rose’s initial rape claim was “duly investigated”, but that the investigation found evidence that contradicted her account. Rose appeared in court on Wednesday and looked calm as the judge delivered the sentence.
