Three men guilty of 'callous' Brighton beach rape

Three men have been found guilty of raping a woman on Brighton beach in a "cynical, predatory and callous attack".

Iranian national Abdulla Ahmadi, 26, and Egyptian national Ibrahim Alshafe, 25, had denied repeatedly raping the woman in the early hours of 4 October.

Karin Al-Danasurt, 20 and also from Egypt, had denied filming her ordeal. He was also found guilty of rape as a secondary party.

The three men - who are asylum seekers - were convicted at Hove Crown Court on Thursday.

The men were living at a Home Office hotel near Horsham at the time of the offence.

Prosecutors have claimed that Al-Danasurt was convicted of murder in Egypt before he crossed the Channel into the UK on a small boat, although his defence barrister has disputed this.

He had also been given a caution in the UK for criminal damage in April last year, prosecutors said.

Prosecutor Hanna Llewellyn-Waters KC said the "puerile contempt" shown by Al-Danasurt, the "predatory nature" of Alshafe, and Ahmadi's selfish entitlement "created the perfect storm that night".

The court heard they targeted the woman, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, after she became separated from her friends on a night out.

She was "highly intoxicated" to the extent that she was on her hands and knees vomiting into a toilet and could not stand unaided.

The woman said to police the men laughed as they kicked her and grabbed her throat during the rape - leaving her with bruises.

Al-Danasurt was accused of spitting in the woman's face while recording the attack.

Prosecutor Llewellyn-Waters said the men were "on the lookout for women that night for sexual purposes" as they visited bars and nightclubs on Brighton seafront.

Alshafe told the court he was a virgin looking for a British bride.

After leaving a club, the men crossed paths with the woman at a fast-food restaurant and they all went to the beach.

"She didn't know what was lying in wait for her," said the prosecutor.

"She didn't know she was being led into the darkness to be used as a sexual plaything."

"Frankly, to these defendants, the complainant was meat," Llewellyn-Waters added.

The woman told the jury the men were "evil" and had "ruined" her life.

Breaking down in tears, she said every time she closed her eyes she saw "the filmer's face" laughing at her.

The woman added she regained consciousness lying on the beach and thought she was going to be killed.

All three have been refused their asylum applications, according to the prosecution.

They are all appealing those decisions.

The prosecution added that it was not a forgone conclusion the defendants would be deported following their convictions.

Border security and asylum minister Alex Norris said the Home Office would seek to remove the men from "British soil" once they had been sentenced.

Al-Danasurt had also been on trial for allegedly sharing a video of the rape, although this charge was withdrawn due to a legal technicality.

He had claimed he was filming to try to help the woman by capturing potential evidence.

Alshafe and Ahmadi had claimed during the trial the encounter was consensual.

Following the attack, the men had a barbecue together later in the evening, around the same time the woman was waiting to be medically examined.

Ahmadi left the hotel near Horsham 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.

Ahmadi told jurors he left Iran because he was working for a Kurdish opposition party and was being looked for by the country's secret police.

Egyptian national Alshafe, a former carpenter, said he came to the UK for a better life.

His asylum application had been refused the night before the rape, the trial heard.

The pair arrived in the country in 2025, while Al-Danasurt came the year before.

Holly Morton, from the Crown Prosecution Service, thanked the victim for her bravery in reporting what happened.

"None of us can begin to imagine what the woman went through that night," she said.

The men are due to be sentenced on 15 July.