Man who drugged, raped woman jailed for 29 years

A migration agent who drugged a woman and raped her 67 times while she was unconscious has been jailed for nearly three decades.

Frank Hu, 38, was sentenced to 29 years in prison by County Court Judge Trevor Wraight on Friday.

Hu pleaded guilty to eight charges of rape, three of sexual assault, three of intentionally causing injury and one charge of recklessly causing seriously injury for offending involving seven women.

He primarily met his victims through companies he operated out of a Little Collins Street business in central Melbourne, and drugged them when they worked or after he arranged employment interviews with them.

He called ambulances for women he drugged on four occasions after noticing their conditions deteriorate. One woman spent two days in intensive care after going into cardiac arrest, requiring CPR and defibrillation to resuscitate her.

He raped two of the women - one twice, and the other 67 times.

"Your offending is appalling and must be condemned in the strongest terms," the judge said.

His offending was uncovered by Australian Border Force officials who searched Hu's phone at Melbourne airport after he returned from overseas.

Images of semi-conscious or unconscious woman being sexually offended against were sent to Victoria Police, but the investigation languished as they were unable to identify the victims.

But in late 2018 one of the women contacted police saying she believed she had been sexually assaulted by Hu.

One woman contacted police in 2019 after she had been drugged by Hu. She logged onto his computer and found he was a member of a website where people shared footage of unconscious or sleeping women being sexually abused.

She took photos of images uploaded by Hu, including some showing her.

Another woman, who had known Hu for more than five years, discovered he had taken 1369 images and 195 videos of her while she was unconscious between 2016 and 2019.

Hu had previously told her about a number of women who had become sick at work.

"It can't be a coincidence," she had told him. He replied "maybe it was just bad luck".

Hu, who was raised in central China as the son of a military officer and a police officer, came to Australia to study at university.

He told a psychiatrist he had developed a fetish of sexual interest in sedated and unconscious women. The first time he had sex with an unconscious woman it "opened up the wrong door in my brain ... and I disregarded their safety".

Judge Wraight said it was clear he accepted full responsibility for his conduct and felt self-loathing, fear, disgust and shame at his actions.

But he said he was lacking empathy for the particularly traumatic impact on his victims.

He ordered Hu serve at least 22 years of the sentence. Hu has already spent three-and-a-half years behind bars.

1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732)

National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service 1800 211 028