Asylum Seekers Living in Home Office-Funded Hotel 'Gang-Raped' Woman on Brighton Beach, Court Hears

Three asylum seekers living in a Home Office-funded hotel allegedly gang-raped a vulnerable woman on Brighton beach after targeting her because she was drunk, the Brighton beach rape trial has heard at Hove Crown Court.

The defendants are Karin Al-Danasurt, 20, an Egyptian from Horsham, Ibrahim Alshafe, 25, Egyptian from Horsham, and Abdulla Ahmadi, 26, Iranian from Crewe. All three deny the charges. The trial opened earlier this week. The men, who arrived via small boats and had pending asylum claims, were living in the hotel when the attack allegedly took place.

The Alleged Attack

The woman, then 33, had become separated from her friends while on a night out. The incident happened in the early hours of 4 October last year. Prosecutors say she was highly intoxicated and incapacitated.

Prosecutor Hanna Llewellyn-Waters told the jury that rather than assisting the woman or leaving her alone, the defendants targeted her precisely because of the state she was in. She was taken away from the relative safety of the seafront to a secluded spot on the beach behind a shack which obscured the view from the main drag along the seafront.

There she was put on the ground and raped repeatedly by two of the men. The woman reported being spat on, kicked and grabbed by the throat as the men laughed. She crawled off the beach and was captured on CCTV. The court heard the targeting was 'cynical, predatory and callous'. She was meat to be used.

Filming and Court Evidence

Al-Danasurt is accused of filming the alleged attacks and sending the recordings to another defendant's phone. Pixelated footage will be played to jurors. Al-Danasurt himself in his police interview recognised that the woman was unable to even stand without support and admitted filming what was happening because he knew that it was rape.

However he said that he didn't have sex with her. He invited officers to look at the videos to show he had done nothing wrong. The other two defendants gave different accounts. One said he wasn't there and the other claimed the woman initiated consensual sex while fully conscious.

Judge Christine Henson KC reminded the jury not to fall into the trap of thinking someone is less worthy of belief because of lifestyle choices. 'The lived experience of a sexual assault may well not be remembered in a neat, consistent, forensic parcel', she said. DNA evidence matched Alshafe and Ahmadi to the complainant. Results for Al-Danasurt were inconclusive.

The Accused Men's Background

The three men are asylum seekers who arrived in the UK via small boats. They knew each other and were housed by the Home Office in the same hotel at the time, the Cisswood House Hotel in Lower Beeding. Al-Danasurt had entered the country a year earlier. The other two entered three months before the alleged offences.

Ahmadi left the hotel the day after the alleged rapes and moved to an address in Crewe without Home Office approval. Their asylum claims were pending. The trial is expected to continue for four weeks. The case has also attracted comment on social media.

X user Ian Miles Cheong highlighted how the asylum seekers allegedly treated the woman like worthless meat. The trial at Hove Crown Court continues.