Three men have been found guilty of gang-raping a woman on Brighton beach after prosecutors said they dragged her to a secluded area, spat on her, kicked her and filmed the attack. Egyptian nationals Karin Al-Danasurt, 20, and Ibrahim Alshafe, 25, and Iranian national Abdulla Ahmadi, 26, were convicted at Hove Crown Court after what prosecutors described as a “cynical, predatory and callous” assault.
The court heard the woman had become separated from her friends after a night out in Brighton and was intoxicated to the point of being, in the prosecution’s words, “to all intents and purposes, incapacitated”. Jurors were told she was targeted while staggering alone in the street before being led down to the beach and taken behind a shack, where Alshafe and Ahmadi raped her repeatedly.
Prosecutor Hanna Llewellyn-Waters said the woman was treated “like meat” and abused for the defendants sexual gratification and entertainment. The court was shown footage from the attack, including clips said to show the woman motionless on her back with her eyes closed while the two men raped her, while Al-Danasurt filmed and encouraged the offences.
Jurors also heard the men laughed, spat on the victim and called her a “dirty b***h” during the prolonged assault. The woman told the court she feared they would kill her as they pinned her down and that she drifted in and out of consciousness while being repeatedly violated. She said she could not understand why they had done it and recalled them laughing as she pleaded, “Why are you doing this to me?”
The three defendants had spent the evening drinking and were later seen on footage getting ready for a night out before travelling by bus into Brighton in October last year. Prosecutors said they had been “on the prowl” for women throughout the evening.
At the time of the attack, all three were staying at Cisswood House Hotel in Horsham, West Sussex, which was Home Office-approved accommodation for asylum seekers. The court heard that Alshafe and Ahmadi arrived in the UK by small boat on 19 June 2025, while Al-Danasurt entered the country on 11 October 2024.
Alshafe, of Horsham, and Ahmadi, from Crewe in Cheshire, had each denied two counts of rape. Al-Danasurt, also of Horsham, denied all four rape counts and an additional charge connected to sharing an intimate film. The jury convicted them after hearing evidence, watching CCTV and examining footage recovered from a phone.
After the assault, the defendants were filmed having a barbecue in the grounds of the asylum hotel, prosecutors said. The case has drawn widespread attention because of the brutality of the attack and the defendants actions before and after it.