Serial sex predator Shane Gibbs (Image: CPS)
A serial sex monster who plied victims – including teenage girls – with sedatives before raping and abusing them at hotels and AirBnb rentals faces – was snared after a horrified mother received a graphic photograph uploaded to the iCloud account she shared with her daughter.
The mother was left stunned after Shane Gibbs, 35, whisked two schoolgirls aged 15 and 16 to a seafront hotel where he plied them with drugs and alcohol before abusing them.
The parents of the two girls had reported their daughters missing just before Christmas last year –when one of the mothers who shared an icloud account with her daughter received a batch of pictures taken at Brighton Marina of a man and of drugs before she opened a chilling photograph showing one of the girls “bent over in a sexual position with the man behind her”.
Both girls returned home on Christmas Eve but went missing again three days later.
That prompted one of the mothers to turn super sleuth and she used social media to share a picture of the man in the photographs to be given the name “Shane Gibbs.”
Brighton seafront, East Sussex, UK (Image: Getty)
The parents passed the name on to police who discovered he had been caught on camera by one of his victims, the 16-year-old, who had filmed -style videos on her phone, although she admitted she had been “off her nut” and couldn’t remember filming all of them.
And while Gibbs protested his innocence claiming to have showered his victims with cash and kindness, police recovered another clip in which he filmed himself throwing bank notes over the two unconscious teenagers as they lay in a hotel bed.
Gibbs, who called himself Top G, told Hove Crown Court that he had previously been a heavy drug user and that he could not be guilty of some of the charges because on occasions he had been physically unable to have sex.
The jury was told how the drug dealer preyed on vulnerable women who he encouraged to spend time with him before taking them to locations considered to be “luxurious” where he would provide them with “generous quantities” of drugs and alcohol.
Gibbs claimed he had taken care of his six victims in a “brotherly” manner and insisted they had had sex with him willingly.
Brighton Marina where Gibbs took victims (Image: Getty)
He claimed that he did not know that one of the girls was 15 and that her friend was 16 when he took them to a Brighton hotel for a night.
Jennifer Knight, prosecuting, said: “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 six week trial was told how Gibbs took his victims to Brighton’s Leonardo hotel, the Hilton Metropole and Queen’s hotel, both on the seafront, and the Malmaison, at Brighton Marina.
But he also rented Airbnbs at the Marina and on Hove seafront.
Miss Knight said: “These events came to the attention of the police through several different reports.”
Infamous brothel madam Cynthia Payne (Image: Getty)
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When he was finally arrested in a Travelodge hotel room in Portsmouth, Miss Knight said: “Police found Shane Gibbs surrounded by cash and a large amount of drugs.
“When the drugs seized from the room were later analysed, there were found to be quantities of cocaine, MDMA, methylamphetamine, ketamine, GBL and cannabis.”
He also had a blister pack of 10 sildenafil tablets, commonly known by the trade name Viagra.
Gibbs sacked his legal team after a jury had been sworn in last month and, at short notice, turned to David Spens, who once defended Brighton’s most famous former waitress, Cynthia Payne.
She became known as Madame Cyn or the “Luncheon Vouchers madam” and had previously been jailed for keeping a brothel.
But, in 1987, Mr Spens secured her acquittal after she was arrested for hosting a party to celebrate the end of shooting of the film Personal Services, telling the story of her life.
However he was unable to prevent Gibbs being found guilty of 15 sexual and violent offences, including seven counts of rape and five sex attacks.
He was also found guilty of false imprisonment, intentional strangulation and assault causing one of his victims actual bodily harm. He was cleared of one rape.
Gibbs booked rooms on Airbnb (Image: Getty)
Emma Lile of the Crown Prosecution Service said: “Gibbs was a sexual predator who went around the Brighton coastline preying on vulnerable young women in pursuit of his own hideous purposes.
“We would like to extend a special thanks to the victims who came forward to report these crimes and gave evidence to the court about their horrific experiences.
“These convictions send a very clear message that the CPS, working alongside law enforcement, will relentlessly pursue justice and prosecute those who abuse or sexually exploit women.
“I encourage any victims of violence against women and girls in whatever form to report the crimes committed against them. It is never too late to seek justice – you are not alone and there is help available.”
The maximum penalty for rape is a life sentence. Guidelines set out various factors to be taken into account suggest that Gibbs could be jailed for between 10 and 19 years.