Three remanded in custody charged with raping other men in Brighton

Three men charged with raping other men have been remanded in custody by Brighton magistrates over the past week.

The cases are unconnected, according to Sussex Police.

Louis Thomas, 34, unemployed, of Lower Rock Gardens, Brighton, was arrested on Monday (8 July).

He was charged with two counts of raping a man in Brighton a week earlier (Monday 1 July).

He was also charged with robbing the same man of £80 cash and a mobile phone.

At Brighton Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday (9 July) he was remanded in custody to reappear on Tuesday 30 July.

Robert Cain, 44, who is unemployed and gave no address, appeared at Brighton Magistrates’ Court on Thursday 4 July.

He was charged with rape, assault by penetration and assaulting a man in Brighton on Wednesday 3 July. He was remanded in custody to appear in the crown court on Friday 20 September.

Dragos-Lucian Cornea, 27, a chef, of Brighton Road, Crawley, has also been charged with raping a man in Brighton. The offence is alleged to have taken place on Thursday 27 June.

He is also accused of robbing the same man of a laptop computer.

On Monday (8 July) Brighton magistrates remanded him in custody to appear on Tuesday 30 July.

Detective Inspector Mick Jones, from Brighton and Hove CID, said: “There is nothing at all to suggest that these three offences are in way related, other than that they happened over a very short period of five days.

“Each of the alleged offences took place in private premises after the accused men had struck up conversations with their alleged victims in the street on two occasions and in a pub on the third.”