Meet the woman who got jailed for reporting a false rape

Isabel Rose, 26, from Hackney, London, traveled to Hong Kong in January 2024 to see a man she had met weeks earlier in Thailand. That same night, at his apartment, she claimed she had been raped. Two days later, she went to the police.

But the messages she herself sent told a different story: they spoke of money, not justice. Prosecutors proved that she demanded £100,000—around $130,000—threatening to report him if he did not pay. The man was arrested, questioned, and never charged with anything.

Judge Adriana Tse Ching had no doubts: she called him an honest and credible witness, and described her as dishonest and without an ounce of remorse. Six years later, Rose is serving her sentence at the maximum-security Tai Lam prison.