Man denies 'celebrating' during alleged rape

A man 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".

Egyptian nationals Ibrahim Alshafe and Karin Al-Danasurt, and Iranian national Abdulla Ahmadi allegedly targeted the woman in the early hours of 4 October 2025.

All three men deny the charges.

Giving evidence at Hove Crown Court on Wednesday, Alshafe said he believed the woman wanted to have sex with him, adding: "I swear I didn't rape her."

The 25-year-old previously told the court the woman had approached him and Ahmadi, kissing them and touching them, so they said their understanding was she wanted to have sex.

In a video shown to jurors, Alshafe was seen smiling with his tongue out and making a hand gesture towards Al-Danasurt who was filming.

When cross-examined by the 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."

Alshafe was also asked about a final third recording shown in court of him slapping the woman in the face.

"I wasn't hitting her to punish her or torture her, I was playing with her," he said.

Jurors previously heard the woman had been separated from her friends while on a girls' night out.

Prosecutors said the three defendants approached her when she was "staggering in the street" alone.

The court has heard that footage shows the woman falling down twice.

Asked if she was unconscious at any time and if she was asleep at any time, Alshafe said: "No, she was enjoying what we were doing."

Alshafe told jurors he lied in his initial police interviews about not being in Brighton at the time of the alleged incident.

"I was scared, I was terrified of what's going on," he said.

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, of Lower Beeding, and Ahmadi, 26, of Crewe in Cheshire, have each denied two counts of raping the woman.

Al-Danasurt, 20, 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.

Al-Danasurt is also accused of sending the recordings of the alleged rapes to Ahmadi's phone.

The trial continues.

Additional reporting by PA.

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