A drug dealer plied four women with sedatives and raped them in hotel rooms and Airbnbs in Brighton and Hove, sometimes filming what he was doing, a court was told.
Shane Gibbs, 35, is also accused of sexually assaulting two others during a spree of offences last November and December.
Gibbs faces trial on 19 charges – 16 of them counts of rape or other sexual attacks – as well as strangling a woman, assault and false imprisonment. He denies all the charges.
Jennifer Knight, prosecuting, told the jury at Hove Crown Court: “Over the course of several months in the autumn and winter of 2023, Shane Gibbs preyed upon teenagers and vulnerable women in the Brighton and Hove area.
“He was, during those months, supplying drugs in the city and living a seemingly nomadic life, moving between hotel rooms and various Airbnb properties on and around the seafront.
“Through his supply of drugs and those he associated with, Shane Gibbs met the young women who are complainants in this case.
“Most of these complainants were addicted to drugs – and all were vulnerable by virtue of these addictions or, in the case of two of them, both 15 years old, because of their youth.
“Shane Gibbs encouraged these women to spend time with him, taking them to locations they often considered to be luxurious and supplying them with generous quantities of a wide variety of drugs and alcohol.
“In this way, and by his use of the sedative drug GHB, he ensured that they became high on drugs to the point of passing out or so sedated as to be incapable of rational thought or action.
“He then raped and sexually assaulted six of the seven complainants, often when they were asleep or in a state where they were incapable of exercising any choice or of stopping him.”
The jury was told that he met women in the Leonardo hotel, by Brighton railway station, the Hilton Metropole and the Queen’s hotel, both on the seafront and the Malmaison, at Brighton Marina.
Gibbs, also known as Blue, stayed in Airbnbs above Five Guys, at the Marina, and on Hove seafront, including in Grand Avenue.
Miss Knight said: “These events came to the attention of the police through several different reports.”
The parents of two schoolgirls reported their daughters missing just before Christmas last year – including one of the mothers who shared an icloud account with her daughter.
The shared icloud account showed pictures of the Marina, of a man and of drugs – and a photo showing one of the girls “bent over in a sexual position with the man behind her”.
The girls came home on Christmas Eve but went missing again three days later.
