Rape accused in same bar and club as woman, court told

Two men accused of rape were in the same bar and club as a woman prior to an alleged attack on Brighton beach, a court was told.

The woman 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 is also accused of sending the recordings to Ahmadi's phone.

The jury at Hove Crown Court were shown CCTV footage of the woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, when she encountered Alshafe and Ahmadi in Revolution bar.

She could be seen interacting with them before she left Revolution after 03:00 BST, the court was told.

CCTV footage also showed the two men and the woman interacting again in Horizon, before she left the club just after 05:00.

Prosecutor Hanna Llewellyn-Waters had previously told the court the woman was intoxicated and "to all intents and purposes, incapacitated" at the time.

The woman previously told jurors that she was spat on, grabbed and held down during the alleged attacks.

At an earlier hearing, jurors heard the woman had "crawled off the beach" and was captured on CCTV leaving the beach alongside Alshafe.

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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