A man accused of raping a woman on a popular UK beach has denied ‘celebrating her humiliation’ by sticking out his tongue and smiling to a friend filming the act
An asylum seeker who smiled and stuck his tongue out to his friend while he was allegedly raping a woman on Brighton beach has denied “celebrating her humiliation”.
Ibrahim Alshafe, 25, is on trial alongside co-defendants Karin Al-Danasurt, 20, and Abdulla Ahmadi, 26, for allegedly targeting the woman in a “cynical, predatory and callous” attack in the early hours of October 4, 2025.
Alshafe and Ahmadi are accused of repeatedly raping the woman on the East Sussex beach, while Al-Danasurt filmed the incident.
Alshafe said at Hove Crown Court on Wednesday, April 8 that he understood the woman wanted to have sex with him, adding: “I swear I didn’t rape her.”
The Egyptian national previously told the court the woman came up to himself and Ahmadi, kissing them and touching them so they believed she wanted to have sex.
A video was shown to jurors at Hove Crown Court in which Alshafe is seen smiling with his tongue out and making a hand gesture towards his friend filming.
He said he did not know he was being filmed and was just responding to a gesture made towards him.
Put to him in cross-examination by prosecutor Hanna Llewellyn-Waters KC that he was celebrating her humiliation, he replied: “This is not celebration, this a reaction to a gesture that was made to me.”
Speaking through an Arabic interpreter, he also said: “I was happy, she was happy.”
Alshafe was questioned further about another video, where he slapped the woman in the face.
He said: “I wasn’t hitting her to punish her or torture her, I was playing with her.”
The court heard that the woman was on a girls’ night out and had been separated from her friends. Prosecutors told the court that the defendants approached her when she was “staggering in the street” alone.
The court was also told that footage shows the woman falling twice.
Alshafe said when questioned that the woman was not unconscious or asleep at any time, “she was enjoying what we were doing.”
He added that both in the walk to and from the beach the pair were kissing.
At the time of the alleged offences, all three defendants knew each other and were residents at a Home Office-approved hotel accommodation for asylum seekers near Horsham, West Sussex, jurors have heard.
Alshafe admitted he had lied in his initial police interviews about not being in Brighton and in his accommodation at the time of the incident.
He told the court: “I was scared, I was terrified of what’s going on.”
Alshafe, of Lower Beeding, and Iranian national Ahmadi, of Crewe in Cheshire, have each denied two counts of raping the woman.
Egyptian national Al-Danasurt, also of Lower Beeding, is jointly charged on all four rape counts as a secondary party “encouraging the rape by his actions at the scene, including filming it”, and has pleaded not guilty to all four charges.
He denies a fifth count of “sharing intimate films” without the complainant’s consent.
The charge relates to an allegation that Al-Danasurt sent recordings of the alleged rapes to Ahmadi’s phone via Snapchat shortly after the incident.
The trial continues.
