Asylum seekers raped woman on Brighton beach in ‘predatory’ attack, jurors told

Two asylum seekers repeatedly raped a woman on Brighton beach while a third one filmed the incident in a “cynical, predatory and callous” attack, jurors have been told.

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

Al-Danasurt is also accused of having filmed the alleged rapes, later sending the recordings to Ahmadi’s phone, a trial at Hove Crown Court heard on Tuesday.

At the time of the alleged offences, all three defendants knew each other and were residents at the Cisswood House Hotel in Horsham, West Sussex, which was Home Office-approved accommodation for asylum seekers, jurors were told.

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

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 alleged victim was “staggering in the street” alone when she was approached by the three defendants, the court heard.

“Instead of offering her help or even just leaving her be, these defendants targeted her,” Ms Llewellyn-Waters said.

“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,” the prosecutor added.

Alshafe and Ahmadi took the complainant to a location behind a beach shack which obscured the view on to the beach and raped the woman “repeatedly”, jurors were told.

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

Although the complainant could not be definitive as to 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 told jurors.

“Again, footage retrieved from his telephone shows that he filmed the complainant being raped by Alshafe and Ahmadi.”

Jurors were told they would be shown the footage during the course of the trial.

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

Ahmadi, from Crewe in Cheshire, and Alshafe, who lives in Horsham, have each denied two counts of raping the woman.

Al-Danasurt, also from Horsham, is jointly charged 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 denies a fifth count of “sharing intimate films” without the complainant’s consent.

The trial continues.