Three failed asylum seekers who gang-raped an unconscious woman on Brighton beach in an ‘entirely predatory and callous attack’ face deportation after being handed lengthy jail sentences today.

Egyptians Karin Al-Danasurt and Ibrahim Alshafe, and Iranian national Abdulla Ahmadi, were each handed extended terms of up to 27 years for their ‘predatory, callous and contemptuous’ behaviour.

Judge Christine Henson KC said the evidence of the small-boat migrants at trial – when they denied raping the ‘vulnerable’ woman – offered ‘a chilling insight into your warped mindsets’.

She said: ‘The arrogant and entitled attitudes you each displayed that night continued throughout your trial.

‘Each of you were prepared to say whatever it took to deflect your actions – lie after lie, blaming others, from the police to interpreters to solicitors.’

Their victim, a local woman in her 30s who cannot be identified, became emotional as she bravely recalled the horrific 25-minute ordeal at the vile trio’s sentencing hearing today.

Her voice cracking slightly as she gave evidence behind a screen, she told Hove Crown Court: ‘They destroyed my life that night – they violated me in every way.

‘My skin crawls – no matter how hard I scrub it I still feel dirty.’

Egyptian Karin Al-Danasurt, who was found guilty of gang-rape, has a previous conviction for murder

Iranian national Abdulla Ahmadi was convicted by jurors, who deliberated for more than 16 hours

Ibrahim Alshafe from Egypt was convicted alongside his two co-defendants

Twenty-six-year-old Ahmadi left court in handcuffs following his sentencing hearing today

Shameless Al-Danasurt tried to cover his face as he left court to begin his 18-and-a-half year sentence

As he was taken away from court, Alshafe, walking with a crutch, wrapped a top around his head in order to hide his face from cameras 

The three men were convicted of multiple counts of rape in April following a five-week trial.

Alshafe and Ahmadi, who are both 26, were each handed a 21-year jail term for two rapes.

Al-Danasurt, 21, who filmed the rapes but did not physically assault the victim, was found guilty of four rapes, and handed a prison sentence of 18 years and six months.

All three were handed an additional six-year extended licence period following their eventual release from jail. They will be available for release after serving two-thirds of their prison sentences. 

They have had their asylum claims turned down and are expected to be deported, although the judge said this was now a matter for the Home Office.

The victim, praised by the judge for her ‘tremendous bravery’, was having a night out with friends when the trio lured her to a secluded part of Brighton beach.

They subjected her to a brutal attack in which they treated the defenceless victim like ‘meat’.

It later emerged that Al-Danasurt had already been convicted of murder in his homeland in 2022, but fled to Europe and crossed the Channel to the UK illegally in 2024.

The UK authorities were none the wiser until Al-Danasurt mentioned the matter on his asylum application – and officials remain unable to verify its authenticity.

The victim of the callous attack left the nightclub shortly after 5am and made her way along the seafront, before being attacked behind a shed on Brighton Beach

Reading her witness statement at Hove Crown Court, the woman said: ‘I don’t think I will ever drink again or go clubbing or go out in general.

‘It affects me in every way in daily life – most of the time it is okay, but sometimes it is unbearable.

‘Most nights, when I try to fall asleep, I can hear the seagulls and them [the rapists] laughing.

‘It feels like I am back on the beach that night.’ My skin crawls and no matter how much I scrub it I still cannot get clean.

‘I feel so embarrassed to have my body violated that night – I don’t think I will ever have a partner again.’

She added: ‘Sometimes not remembering might be better. I ask myself what kind of person does this, let alone three?’

The trial heard how the trio filmed themselves getting ready at a Home Office hotel in Horsham where they were staying, before visiting bars and nightclubs on Brighton seafront where they were ‘on the lookout for women that night for sexual purposes’, prosecutor Hanna Llewellyn-Waters KC said at the trial.   

The men crossed paths with the victim as she staggered along the promenade when she became separated from her friends after a night out.

Approaching her in the street at around 5.45am on October 4 last year, two of the men engaged her in conversation, and just four minutes later they could be seen on CCTV camera walking her towards a ramp down to the beach.

Al-Danasurt, pictured seated, alongside co-defendants Ahmadi (centre) and Alshafe – all three men entered the country illegally

The woman was then led behind a Beach Patrol shack and, as she drifted in and out of consciousness, Ahmadi and Alshafe brutally raped her.

The pair were joined by Al-Danasurt who filmed her on his phone, laughing and repeatedly calling her: ‘Dirty b****, dirty b****.’

At one point he grabbed hold of her face, forced open her mouth and spat in it while encouraging his friends to do the same.

CCTV footage showed the group chatting up and groping other women throughout the night, including a friend of the woman they raped.

The trio then went back to one of their asylum hotels and had a barbecue.

Hanna Llewellyn-Waters KC said they had not seen their victim as a human being but as a piece of ‘meat’, and had ‘a warped sense of pride in their debasement’ of her.

She described their behaviour today as ‘predatory, callous and contemptuous’, and said they were ‘devoid of humanity’.  

All three denied raping the woman. Al-Danasurt even shamelessly told jurors he was trying to ‘help’ the woman by filming her, and thereby building up evidence of the attack.

Al-Danasurt grins as he is led to the prison van after a previous court appearance

But he did nothing to stop the violent assaults, and told jurors that ‘rape is sex’.

The other two said the sex was consensual.

Giving evidence during the trial, the woman told the court she was ‘begging them to stop’ as she drifted in and out of consciousness, but they did not.

She told jurors: ‘Every time I close my eyes I can see them laughing at me. Every night it bothers me.

‘They thought it was funny. It wasn’t consensual at all. They have literally ruined my whole life.

‘I didn’t say they could do that. My skin crawls because of what they did to me.

‘They’re evil and they’ve ruined my life.’

She described herself as ‘paralytic drunk’ and said she had no recollection of how she came to be on Brighton beach.

The migrants filmed themselves having a barbecue at their asylum hotelafter raping the woman

In one CCTV clip, Alshafe could be seen speaking to an unknown blonde female in Horizon nightclub in the early hours of October 4.

As she could not speak Arabic and he could not speak English, the pair communicated via the Google Translate app.

In a series of texts she asked him where he was from and told him he was welcome in the UK but questioned his motive for coming to the country.

She asked him what his ‘goal’ was for the future and how he saw his life panning out in Britain.

Reading from the message, prosecutor Ms Llewellyn-Waters said the woman asked: ‘Is your only goal here to marry a British woman?’

He replied: ‘I am in this country. I will build my future, meet a woman, get married, have children and become a citizen.’

The case again exposed the fragility of the UK’s borders, with Al-Danasurt among the plethora of small boat migrants thought to have slipped into the country under an alias.

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said following the conviction: ‘There are people who are taking our country for a ride, are coming here trying to claim asylum, which is for genuine refugees, when really they come here to do harm to others.’

The trio were sentenced at Hove Trial Centre, not far from Brighton beach where the unconscious woman was raped 

Border Security and Asylum Minister Alex Norris said: ‘This case is nothing short of gut-wrenching. 

‘My thoughts are first and foremost with the victim who has suffered the most unimaginable harm yet shown such tremendous courage in speaking out against these evil predators. 

‘They have rightly faced the full force of the law.

‘I want to be absolutely clear – there is no place for foreign criminals in the UK. Sex offenders will be denied refugee protections, and we will do everything in our power to get them out of the country.’

The prosecutor told court today that ‘extensive requests’ had taken place ‘at the very highest of levels’ to try and verify Al-Danasurt’s previous murder conviction, but without success.

Ms Llewellyn-Waters said: ‘What is quite clear during the course of the second full interview (with the Home Office) is, it is his account that he stands convicted of murder in absence and he has received a sentence of 15 years.’

She said Al-Danasurt said he was innocent. 

The court heard Ahmadi has since offered to apologise ‘face to face’ to the victim, and has signed paperwork agreeing to his deportation.

But he also asked the court for the police to give him his mobile phone back.