Alleged rape left woman 'scared to go out', court told

A woman was left "too scared to go outside" after she was allegedly raped on Brighton beach by two men while a third filmed the attack, a court has heard.

The woman, who cannot be identified, had been on a night out but became separated from her friends.

Abdulla Ahmadi, 26, an Iranian national living in Crewe, Cheshire, and 25-year-old Ibrahim Alshafe, an Egyptian living in Horsham, West Sussex, each deny two counts of raping the woman in the early hours of 4 October last year.

Karin Al-Danasurt, 20, an Egyptian living in Horsham, has denied four counts of rape as a secondary party "encouraging the rape by his actions at the scene, including filming it".

He has also denied a fifth count of "sharing intimate films" without the complainant's consent, in relation to a claim he sent recordings of the alleged rapes to Ahmadi's phone after the incident.

The trial of the three men, who are asylum seekers, began at Hove Crown Court on Tuesday.

Jurors have heard that Alshafe and Ahmadi repeatedly raped the woman in the early hours, in a "cynical, predatory and callous" attack.

A statement read to jurors by prosecutor Hanna Llewellyn-Waters said that one of the complainant's friends who picked the woman up after the alleged attack said she had "mud and dirt going down her legs and on her knees".

She also said that her friend had a cut on her knee which "looked sore", the court heard.

Jurors heard that the friend invited the woman to meet her the next day on 5 October, but she "was too scared to go outside".

On Thursday, the woman's sister gave evidence and said that she rang the complainant on 4 October after the alleged victim tried to video-call their mother.

Asked how she responded to her sister saying she had been raped, the witness said: "I was like, 'what do you mean', I was shocked."

She said that she saw her sister on 4 October and noticed marks on the front of her neck, describing them as finger marks "like someone had grabbed her throat".

The alleged victim has previously told jurors that she was spat on, grabbed and held down.

Jurors were told that at the time of the offences, all three men knew each other and lived at the same hotel near Horsham, which was Home Office-approved accommodation for asylum seekers.

The trial continues.

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