Three asylum seekers found guilty of ‘callous’ rape on Brighton beach
The three men targeted the victim after she became separated from friends on a night out
Last updated 2 hours ago
Three asylum seekers have been found guilty of raping a woman on Brighton beach in what was described in court as a "cynical, predatory, and callous" attack.
Ibrahim Alshafe, 25, Abdulla Ahmadi, 26, and Karin Al-Danasurt, 20, were convicted at Hove Crown Court after targeting the victim when she became separated from friends on a night out.
The court heard that the attack happened in the early hours of 4th October 2025 and involved the men taking the woman behind a beach hut, Alshafe and Ahmadi, repeatedly raping her, while Al-Danasurt filmed the incident.
Egyptian national Ibrahim Alshafe, 25, and Iranian national Abdulla Ahmadi, 26, were both found guilty of two counts of rape by jurors on Thursday.
Egyptian national Karin Al-Danasurt, 20, was also found guilty of all four counts of rape as a secondary party by encouraging and filming the ordeal.
Jurors returned their verdicts in the five-week trial after more than 12 hours of deliberation.
During the trial, prosecutors presented footage showing Alshafe 'smiling and making gestures' while assaulting the victim, as well as him slapping her round the face.
He and Ahmadi had claimed during the trial the encounter was consensual and that she had approached them along the seafront, kissed and touched them both, said something about sex and took them both to the beach.
Al-Danasurt argued he recorded the incident to attempt stopping it, but prosecutors accused him of lying about his involvement.
During cross-examination of his evidence, he denied allegations of spitting on the woman and calling her a “dirty b**ch.”
Prosecutor Hanna Llewellyn-Waters KC had told jurors: “Frankly, to these defendants, the complainant was meat.
“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.”
She said the woman told police she recalled being spat on, kicked, and her throat being grabbed during the attack, as well as men laughing.
Giving evidence in the trial, the woman told the court: “It wasn’t consensual, it was not consensual, they are evil and they have ruined my life.”
Being cross-examined from behind a screen in court, she also cried as she said: “It’s the filmer’s face I see every time I close my eyes, laughing at me.”
She also told jurors she thought she was going to be killed in the attack, having regained consciousness lying on the beach.
The court heard that the victim was left with mud-stained legs and cuts after the ordeal.
The court also heard minutes after leaving the men, the woman spoke to her friends and was described as “wailing and hysterical saying she has been raped”.
DNA samples were taken from all three defendants, and DNA from both Alshafe and Ahmadi matched with samples taken from the complainant’s body during a forensic medical examination, while Al-Danasurt’s was inconclusive.
All three men lived at Cisswood House Hotel, a Home Office-approved accommodation for asylum seekers in Horsham, at the time of the offences.
The court heard Ahmadi and Alshafe met each other on a small boat from France arriving in the UK on June 19 2025, while Alshafe and Al-Danasurt were roommates at the hotel.
Al-Danasurt arrived in the UK on September 21 2024.
Jurors heard Alshafe’s asylum application had been refused on October 3, but he told the court he did not know about the update to his case before going to Brighton that night.
The trio got ready at the hotel before getting the bus into Brighton on the night of October 3.
A Snapchat video shows them at around 7.30pm at the hotel in front of a mirror with Ahmadi sorting a durag – a close-fitting cloth tied around the top of the head – on Al-Danasurt, who gestures to the camera, filmed by Alshafe smiling.
Earlier on the night out, the friends went to a bar and nightclub on the beach where Alshafe was chatting to a woman via Google Translate about his hopes to marry a woman and have children and get citizenship in the UK.
She said she would like to be friends with him but did not believe he just wanted that “because you’re touching my breasts”.
To which he replied: “I am forced by your beauty”.
The prosecution suggested that what really happened on the night on October 4 was Alshafe had been knocked back by several women and was “on the prowl” with the co-defendants.
“That night, Mr Alshafe, you were nothing more than a nasty little predator,” Ms Llewellyn-Waters said to him in court.
After the attack the men returned to their hotel by bus and later had a barbecue together in the evening, around the same time the woman was waiting to be medically examined.
A video of Al-Danasurt wearing filtered sunglasses in a selfie with a lit barbecue was also shown in court.
Ahmadi left the hotel the day after the rape and moved to an address in Crewe, Cheshire, where he was arrested on October 12, the court heard.
The move had not been approved by the Home Office and Ahmadi had been marked as “absconding, self-departing” from the accommodation.
On October 13, Alshafe and Al-Danasurt, both of of Lower Beeding, near Horsham, were arrested by police at their hotel.
A further count of “sharing intimate films” without the complainant’s consent which Al-Danasurt faced was withdrawn on Thursday April 23 after it was established the offence can only be tried in a magistrates’ court.
The men will be sentenced at a later date.