Asylum seekers ‘gang-raped vulnerable woman on beach as she made her way home from night out, with one filming ordeal’, trial told

An “extremely vulnerable” woman was gang-raped by three asylum seekers who laughed and spat at her as she endured the sickening ordeal, a court heard.

Her alleged attackers were said to have treated her like ‘meat’, dragging her onto pebbles in a secluded part of Brighton beach, where they took turns raping her.

The unidentified woman said she went in and out of consciousness during the attack.

Two of the three asylum seekers are on trial for physical rape, and the third defendant is charged with four counts of rape by encouraging the incident.

Opening the prosecution case, Hanna Llewellyn-Waters said the alleged victim, in her 30s, was “almost motionless” and left alone after being separated from her friend when she was raped in the early morning hours of October 4 last year.

He told the jury: ‘Rather than offering him help or even leaving him alone, these defendants targeted him.

‘And this aim was not established in good faith or kindness or high morale; he was cynical, predatory and callous. And frankly, to these defendants, he was a piece of meat, he was there to be used as a vessel, and that’s what they did.

‘She was abused repeatedly for sexual gratification and entertainment. And that fun partly derived from her humiliation.’

The prosecutor added: ‘They wanted sex and, as jurors, this could be achieved by having sex with someone who was in no position to resist them.’

Iranian Abdulla Amih Ahmadi, 26, of Crewe, and Egyptian Ibrahim Alshafe, 25, of Lower Beeding, Horsham, are alleged to have raped the woman twice.

Egyptian Karin Al-Danasurt, 20, from Lower Beeding, is accused of filming the attacks and is alleged to have shared the footage afterwards.

The court heard they were based at Cisswood House Hotel in Horsham, which is suitable accommodation for people seeking or appealing for asylum and immigration status with the Home Office.

The prosecutor said the defendants took the woman away from the ‘relative safety’ of the main street and to a gravel area of ​​the beach near the wall.

The court stated that the woman could not stand for several hours after drinking with her friends.

‘He was drunk at that stage,’ the prosecutor said. ‘And what I mean by that is; ‘He was unable to maintain his balance and maintain the necessary control over his limbs.’

The court heard she was then raped repeatedly.

Ibrahim Alshafe, 25, is accused of raping a woman who was also attacked by two men

The court heard she thought she was being filmed and that a man was looking at her.

She said she heard the men’s heads ‘laughing’ as another man abused her.

Ms Llewellyn-Waters said: ‘He remembers being caught; ‘His mouth was grabbed, opened and spat out by the man filming.’

The court heard the woman was offered drugs earlier in the evening but refused. But jurors were told he might have been nailed.

In her statement to the police, the woman said: ‘I have been drunk many times, I have never experienced such a feeling before.

‘I could see a light on my face, like, you know, when you put a flash on an iPhone’s camera, and I could hear him saying in a foreign accent: “Dirty bitch, dirty bitch.”

‘As if’ he said [her] the soul was leaving [her] body’.

The judge, the Honorable Christine Henson KC, had previously told jurors that the complainant had voluntarily agreed to drink alcohol before the alleged rape.

But he warned jurors not to fall into the trap of thinking a person is ‘less worthy of belief’ if they drink alcohol or, in some cases, use illegal drugs.

The trial continues. The defendants deny all accusations.