Three fruit pickers ‘raped woman in alleyway after meeting her on drunken night out’

Three fruit pickers raped a 19-year-old woman in an alleyway and on a beach after meeting her on a drunken night out, a court has heard.

Madalin-Daniel Nitu, 23, Genghiz Iasear, 27, and Ionel-Mizel Ciocan, 25 are accused of raping the teenager in Bognor Regis, West Sussex, in the early hours of March 9.    

The men, all farm workers from Romania, based at Groves Farm in Colworth, Chichester, are said to have met her while at a nightclub that evening.     

Rebecca Austin, prosecuting, told Portsmouth Crown Court the alleged victim had started her evening playing drinking games, including spin the bottle, with friends at her home at about 7pm.

Ms Austin said the complainant drank during the evening and took cocaine and cannabis, and could not remember much of what happened, and by the end of the night was more than two and a half times the drink-drive limit.

The prosecutor said the group of friends went to Sheiks nightclub on the pier at Bognor Regis where the teenager met Ciocan who she kissed and danced with.

She said the complainant became increasingly unsteady on her feet and Ciocan showed a ‘predatory pattern’ by ‘refusing to leave her alone’ despite a request by her friend.

Ms Austin said the woman was described as ‘unable to stand, swaying, very drunk and paralytic’ when she left the club and then became separated from her friends.

The court heard that the complainant was then allegedly raped orally in an alleyway by Ciocan and Iasear.

Ms Austin said the woman ‘was in absolutely no fit state to consent’ and the defendants would have been ‘well aware’.

The prosecutor said: ‘The next thing she remembers is being on the beach and someone lying on top of her, she thinks she may have passed out at that stage.’

Iasear and Nitu are accused of orally raping the complainant on the beach and Iasear is charged with raping her on the beach assisted by the other two defendants.

Ms Austin said the three men claim the sexual activity was consensual and at the complainant’s initiation.

The prosecutor said a friend alerted police after finding the teenager on the beach after ‘bravely’ fighting off the defendants, including kicking one in the face.

Ms Austin said of the complainant: ‘She was in a very emotional and distressed state. She was crying and she told the officer she had been raped by three men.

‘She told him she had been raped both on the seafront and in an alleyway. She said the males had taken her to the beach who forcefully tried to remove her clothes.’

Iasear faces three counts of rape while Ciocan and Nitu face two counts of rape.

The defendants deny the charges and the trial continues.