Asylum seekers accused of raping lady on Brighton seaside as one other one filmed

Three asylum seekers are on trial accused of raping a woman on Brighton beach on October 4 last year, with one also accused of filming the alleged attack, Hove Crown Court heard

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Two asylum seekers repeatedly raped a woman on Brighton beach whilst a third filmed the incident in a “cynical, predatory and callous” attack, a jury has heard.

Egyptian nationals Karin Al-Danasurt, 20, and Ibrahim Alshafe, 25, and Iranian national Abdulla Ahmadi, 26, allegedly preyed upon the woman in the early hours of October 4 last year, after she became separated from her friends during a night out.

Al-Danasurt is also accused of recording the alleged rapes, subsequently sending the footage to Ahmadi’s phone, Hove Crown Court was told on Tuesday. At the time of the alleged offences, all three defendants were acquainted with each other and were living at the Cisswood House Hotel in Horsham, West Sussex, which was Home Office-approved accommodation for asylum seekers, jurors heard.

Alshafe and Ahmadi both arrived in the UK via small boat on June 19, 2025, three months before the alleged rapes, whilst Al-Danasurt entered the country on October 11 2024, the court was told.

Prosecutor Hanna Llewellyn-Waters told jurors the complainant was intoxicated at the time of the alleged rapes and “to all intents and purposes, incapacitated”.

“Frankly, to these defendants, the complainant was meat,” Ms Llewellyn-Waters told the court in her opening speech. “She was repeatedly abused for their sexual gratification and entertainment. They wanted sex and that could be achieved by being with someone who was in no state to resist them.”

The court heard that the alleged victim was “staggering in the street” alone when she was approached by the three accused. “Instead of offering her help or even just leaving her be, these defendants targeted her,” stated Ms Llewellyn-Waters.

“That targeting was not founded in good will or bonhomie, in high spirits – it was cynical, predatory and callous. Al-Danasurt himself in his police interview recognised that she was unable to even stand without support,” added the prosecutor.

Alshafe and Ahmadi allegedly took the complainant to a spot hidden behind a beach shack which blocked the view onto the beach and raped the woman “repeatedly”, the jury heard.

“Mr Al-Danasurt went on to that beach moments after his friends took the complainant to the location,” Ms Llewellyn-Waters said.

Whilst the complainant could not definitively say whether she was also raped by Al-Danasurt, the prosecution alleges Al-Danasurt was present and “fully aware of what was happening”.

“His presence and actions served to encourage the commission of those rapes by his co-defendants,” Ms Llewellyn-Waters informed the jury. “Again, footage retrieved from his telephone shows that he filmed the complainant being raped by Alshafe and Ahmadi.”

The jury was informed they would be shown the footage during the trial.

The woman told police she remembered being spat on, kicked, and her throat being grabbed during the alleged rapes, as well as men laughing, Ms Llewellyn-Waters told the jury.

Following the alleged assaults, the complainant “crawled off the beach” and was seen on CCTV ascending the ramp to the esplanade alongside Alshafe, added the prosecutor.

“Google translate entered into his telephone within a couple of minutes of them coming into shot details him telling her to ‘unlock it’, presumably her phone, and, far from wanting to give him her number, she told him to ‘f*** off’,” Ms Llewellyn-Waters informed the jury.

Ahmadi, hailing from Crewe in Cheshire, and Alshafe, residing in Horsham, have both refuted two counts of raping the woman.

Al-Danasurt, also based in Horsham, is jointly accused on all four counts of rape as a secondary party “encouraging the rape by his actions at the scene, including filming it”, and has pleaded not guilty to all four.

He rejects a fifth count of “sharing intimate films” without the complainant’s consent. The trial continues.