Asylum seeker found guilty of brutal hotel worker murder

Guilty verdict returned after DNA links asylum seeker Deng Majek to fatal stabbing of hotel worker Rhiannon Whyte at Bescot Stadium; jury convicts after defence dismissed as “laughable” An asylum seeker who claimed he was wrongly identified has been found guilty of murdering hotel worker Rhiannon Whyte in a frenzied screwdriver attack near a railway station in Walsall.

The court heard that Ms Whyte, who worked at the Park Inn hotel in Walsall, was followed from her workplace to Bescot Stadium railway station, where she was repeatedly stabbed with a screwdriver. She sustained a broken fatal brain injury and died three days later in hospital.

Prosecutor Michelle Heeley KC told jurors the evidence against Majek was “overwhelming,” describing his defence as “laughable” in light of CCTV footage and forensic findings. She said footage showed a man in distinctive clothing — a jacket with different coloured sleeves, black combat trousers, a man bag and sandals — tracking Ms Whyte’s movements before and after the attack.

After the stabbing, Majek was seen returning to the hotel, changing his bloodstained sandals for white trainers, then “dancing” outside with a speaker in what Ms Heeley called an “utterly callous” display of celebration.

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Jurors were also told that Majek remained silent in police interviews, later telling the court his solicitor had advised him not to speak. Ms Heeley suggested he said nothing “because he knew he was guilty and had no answer.”

The prosecution asked jurors to consider what Majek was prepared to lie about, highlighting discrepancies over his age. While Majek claimed to be 19, records from Italian and German authorities gave his date of birth as January 1, 1998 — making him 27 years old. “If he is prepared to lie about that,” Ms Heeley said, “what else is he prepared to lie about?”

For the defence, Gurdeep Garcha KC urged the jury not to treat the trial as “some sort of referendum” on asylum or migration, stressing that his client’s background was irrelevant to the central question of identity. “Mr Majek is not on trial because he is an asylum seeker,” he told the court. “The only issue is whether the prosecution has made you sure that he is the person who followed and attacked Ms Whyte.”

Majek gave evidence denying that he was the man shown on CCTV and insisting that the DNA evidence linking him to the scene was wrong. He said he could not explain why he was seen on CCTV carrying a bag near his accommodation when he claimed to be elsewhere on hotel grounds at the time.