An asylum seeker who arrived in the UK by boat has been convicted of the unprovoked murder of a British mother employed at the hotel where he was staying.

Deng Chol Majek, whose age is reportedly 19 but remains unverified due to a lack of documentation, fatally attacked Rhiannon Whyte with a screwdriver, stabbing her 23 times. The assault occurred while Whyte was on a phone call with her best friend, just three months after Majek had allegedly entered the country illegally via small boat.

The brutal incident took place on a train station platform shortly after 27-year-old Whyte completed a night shift on October 20 of the previous year. She was making a brief 90-second walk from the Park Inn Hotel in Walsall to the nearby Bescot Stadium station when she was attacked.

It has been disclosed that Majek, originally from Sudan, arrived in the UK on the same day as a separate incident in Southport that sparked anti-immigrant riots across the nation, including disturbances at various migrant hotels, back in July of last year.

Further revelations indicate that there had been prior incidents at the asylum hotel, where asylum seekers had allegedly made bomb threats and harassed young female employees.

In court, Majek remained emotionless as the jury at Wolverhampton Crown Court took just over two hours to reach a unanimous decision, finding him guilty of murder and possession of an offensive weapon.

Relatives in the public gallery gasped ‘Yes!’ as the verdicts came in. 

Upon arrival in Britain in July last year, Majek told authorities his birthday was January 1 2006 – which would make him 19. But he had told German and Italian authorities he was born eight years earlier, on January 1 1998, making him 27. 

Prosecutors claimed this was evidence he was lying about his age. 

The convictions followed a trial in which Majek mounted a risible defence to the overwhelming evidence against him, including a bizarre accusation that a forensic expert was lying about finding Ms Whyte’s blood all over his clothes. 

He also denied it was him on CCTV stalking Ms Whyte to the station – despite accepting he was the man seen wearing identical clothing minutes earlier.

Police have been unable to identify any motive for the ‘vicious and frenzied attack’, with the only clue lying in chilling security footage of Majek staring at Ms Whyte in the hotel during her shift that night. 

Mr Justice Soole said he wanted to try to establish Majek’s true age before sentencing but prosecutor Michelle Heeley KC said bone density scans were needed as part of age verification tests, and that Majek had so far been ‘uncooperative’.

The judge said the court may make ‘certain inferences’ from that, but said he would still require a pre-sentence report to him him determine the minimum term for Majek’s mandatory life sentence for murder. 

Majek will be sentenced on December 15. 

In a statement read outside court this afternoon, Rhiannon’s sister, Alex, said Majek had handed the grieving family a ‘life sentence’ after launching his ‘frenzied and unprovoked attack’.

She said Majek had ‘stalked, hunted and then preyed on our defenceless Rhiannon, before cornering her and unleashing a vicious attack’.

Ms Whyte added: ‘On that horrific day, our precious Rhiannon was shown no mercy.

‘Throughout this trial we have been given no reason as to why he chose Rhiannon, no accountability for his actions and no remorse, she fought for her life and to save herself from this sick, twisted and cowardly human – who showed no regard for Rhiannon or human life.’

She said Rhiannon ‘died surrounded by family and friends, we held her in our arms for three days until she succumbed to the injuries he inflicted on her.’

Ms Whyte added: ‘We prayed and begged for her to live, but our hope is that Deng Chol Majek will spend his life alone and unloved.

We now have to grieve her for longer than we got to love her, which will never make any sense to us.’

Detective Chief Inspector Paul Attwell, of British Transport Police, said: ‘This was a brutal, cowardly and entirely unprovoked attack on a vibrant and selfless young woman who had her whole life ahead of her.

‘At no point in our investigation has Majek shown any remorse for taking Rhiannon’s life in such a sadistic and cold-blooded way, nor shown any indication of a motive, and he’s cruelly subjected her family to sitting through a trial despite the damning evidence we presented against him.’

Wolverhamton Crown Court heard Ms Whyte eventually clocked off and embarked on her fateful walk to the station while on the phone to her friend Emma Cowley, who described hearing three ‘really high-pitched, terrified, in-pain’ screams before the line went dead. 

She immediately raised the alarm. 

With Ms Whyte lying gravely injured on the station platform, ‘loner’ Majek casually swung by an off licence to buy himself three cans of super-strength OJ Beer and was then seen laughing and dancing at the hotel, clearly excited by his horrific act of violence.  

Ms Whyte, whose son was then aged five, battled for life for three days in hospital, and her family were told she would be blind if she survived the attack.  She died on October 23. 

In a pooled interview with Sky News, Ms Whyte’s family said the year since her death has been ‘hell on earth’ – but they remain focused on keeping alive the memory of their quirky and caring loved one who ‘would always put everyone else before herself.’

Rhiannon’s mother Siobhan Whyte added: ‘The worst part is not only losing her. It’s the nieces and nephews and her son.’

Asked how they had coped having to tell Rhiannon’s young son, Ms Whyte’s sister Alex broke down as she recalled how she had picked him up for school before a half-term holiday and took him home to explain what had happened.

She said: ‘I initially explained to him that she had a poorly brain, and we tried really hard, and the doctors tried really hard, but they couldn’t fix her brain, so she had to go to heaven.

‘The scream that left that child that day will haunt me for the rest of my life.’

Asked what her feelings are towards Majek, Ms Whyte said: ‘Do you know what? People would sit here and they would say, I hate him – I just feel nothing but anger.

‘But at this moment in time I feel nothing. Because regardless of who it is that did this to her, we lost a sister. My mum lost a daughter. It could have been anybody who did this.

‘Our energy isn’t in him and it never will be in him.

‘It’s about keeping Rhiannon’s memory alive and making a positive change in her memory.’

In the aftermath of the murder, one of Ms Whyte’s sister, Emma Whyte, wrote online that Keir Starmer ‘has blood on his hands’. 

The message was in response to a message from her sibling, Alex, urging urged people to be vigilant after it was announced asylum seekers were to be housed at a hotel in Warwick, close to where the family used to live.

Chris Durham, who worked as a housing officer for Serco, which ran the Park Inn hotel, told the Telegraph that on numerous occasions police were called after migrants harassed women and followed them home.

The 46-year-old said that while staff did their best, it was just a matter of time before a serious incident occurred. 

Mr Durham said that while some of the asylum seekers were friendly, a large number appeared ‘unstable and withdrawn’.

Mr Durham, who left Serco shortly before the murder, said that West Midlands Police were called to deal with incidents at the hotel on a regular basis.

He said: ‘Some of (the migrants) made threats to kill, to blow up the hotel, that they had a bomb in their bag. A few of them followed hotel staff on the bus journeys home.’

Mr Durham said on one occasion an asylum seeker trailed a young woman after her shift finished before getting on the same bus as her and sitting next to her.

‘He just kept badgering her and wouldn’t leave her alone. She reported it to Serco but nothing came of it’, he added.

There is much that remains unknown about her killer. It is understood Majek crossed the English Channel from France on July 29 2024 – one of 255 migrants who arrived on four boats that day, according to Home Office data. 

Hours later, teenager Axel Rudakubana would murder three schoolgirls at a dance class in Southport, Merseyside in a crime which outraged the country and triggered days of anti-migrant disorder, with protesters targeting migrant hotels. 

Majek had first fled Sudan in April 2022, leaving behind his pregnant wife and family to travel to Libya, then across the Mediterranean by small boat where he said he was ‘saved in the sea by the Italian authorities’. 

He spent around four months living in Italy before moving to Germany, where he lived in Kaiserslautern for around a year until he eventually decided to make his way to the UK after being turned down for asylum. 

Majek had been in the process of applying for asylum in the UK – despite having already lodged a claim in Germany – on the basis he was fleeing war in Sudan.

But he appeared to forget this was the supposed reason for his asylum claim when he gave evidence – instead telling jurors he was on the run from a soldier who was threatening him because his family had refused to let him marry his sister. 

At a pre-trial hearing, Majek also appeared to forget that he claimed not to speak  English 

When a Sudanese Arabic interpreter was not available to assist the court, prosecutor Michelle Heeley KC offered to translate the proceedings into German for Majek.

But when he was asked by Ms Heeley, in German, if he spoke German as well as English, Majek responded ‘nein’ before quickly adding ‘no, only English’.

Throughout the subequent trial, Majek repeatedly insisted he had no grasp of the English language and was assisted by an interpreter specialising in the Sudanese dialect of Arabic. 

His account came unstuck, however, when a housing officer who worked at the hotel described regularly having conversations with Majek – including an incident when he became aggressive while being reprimanded for smoking in his room.

‘We could talk in English with one another, I would say he’s fluent because we have had a conversation,’ Tyler English told the court. 

Majek was described by another hotel employee as a ‘loner’ who rarely spent time socialising with the other asylum seekers.

No previous concerns about Majek’s behaviour had been raised with British authorities in the three months between his arrival and the killing, but he had been cautioned by police in Kaiserslautern for kicking a train door while drunk. 

Ms Whyte grew up in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, and attended the town’s Myton School. 

She moved to Walsall with her mother and at least one of her three sisters around five years ago because the mother wanted to make a ‘fresh start’, a former neighbour said.

The neighbour, Mick Spall, 66, said: ‘She took a job up there in the care sector, and we heard Rhiannon found work at the hotel – where the suspect was staying.

‘They were good neighbours.’

Mr Spall, a semi-retired transport worker added: ‘The Whytes were lovely people. I’ve got three children and they all played together (with the Whytes’ children).

‘We’ve not heard of any issues that Rhiannon was having at the hotel in the run-up to this awful incident – we were still in contact, to a degree, on Facebook.’

His daughter Bethany Timms, 24, said she knew Rhiannon from the age of three, when her family moved in next-door to the Whytes in Leamington.

She said: ‘I found out about the murder when I saw something one of Rhiannon’s sisters posted on Facebook. It was a massive shock and brought back lots of memories of the times we spent together.

‘There was no fence between our back gardens when we were growing up so we were always in and out of each other’s garden. I used to play on their slide a lot.’

The contract cleaner added: ‘Rhiannon was just a lovely girl – funny and caring.’

An online fundraiser arranged by Alex Whyte has so far raised more than £8,000 to help support her son.

Ms Whyte, then 29, told The Guardian last year that her sibling had been working in hospitality at the Park Inn hotel for about six months, and had enjoyed ‘sitting with and spending time with the service users’ who stayed there.

She told Sky News this week that her sister’s caring nature had influenced her decision to work at the hotel. 

Ms Whyte added: ‘Rhiannon always wanted to help anyone and everyone, no matter what situation you came from.

‘Rhiannon just wanted to be a support. And the hotel was a way of her giving that to a wider community.

A lot of them opened up to her about their story of how they came to the UK. 

‘She always saw the good in everyone, and with her working at the hotel, it meant that she was making a positive difference to people in need.’

The attack on Ms White took place at 11.19pm on October 20, just minutes before the last train home to the property she shared with her mother in Walsall.

At the start of Majek’s trial, Ms Heeley said the defendant’s movements that night were captured on CCTV, a compilation of which was played to the court.

Ms Whyte’s family, who were sitting in the public gallery, wiped away tears as they watched the footage. 

The prosecutor said the relevant footage started in the hotel reception where Majek was seen ‘staring at Rhiannon throughout the evening’.

When Ms Whyte left the hotel at 11pm, Majek was said to be ‘lurking outside reception’. He allegedly followed her and was seen entering the train car park 90 seconds behind her.

By the time she walked over a bridge separating the platforms, this gap had closed to just 30 seconds. Ms Whyte was alone when she reached the platform.

Majek then launched his ferocious attack, stabbing Ms Whyte 23 times with a Phillips screwdriver, including 19 times in the head, of which 11 penetrated her skull. 

One particularly devasting blow damaged her brain stem and ultimately caused her death. 

The prosecutor said: ‘He left her bleeding to death and then casually went back to his hotel.’ 

Majek had snatched Ms Whyte’s phone and was seen on CCTV throwing it into the River Tame before returning to the hotel with alcohol.

Mr English, the housing officer, described how he had seen Majek earlier that evening looking ‘sad’ – but when he saw him again in the aftermath of the killing he was ‘happier than normal’ and ‘back to himself’. 

Still wearing his blood-splattered clothes, Majek fetched a portable speaker from his room and was seen dancing in the car park with other migrants as well as in the hotel’s corridors. 

In one particularly chilling clip, Majek can be seen swaying to the music while illuminated by the flashing blue lights of ambulances which had rushed to the murder scene nearby. 

‘He is celebrating, his mood has changed from that prolonged scowl in the cafe before the murder to dancing and joy after the murder,’ prosecutor Ms Heeley said. 

‘It is utterly callous.’ 

Police quickly tracked Majek to the hotel using CCTV and arrested him at 5.06am. He found him in possession of a jacket, a pair of combat trousers, jewellery and a pair of sandals, all of which were later found to have Ms Whyte’s blood on them.

Ms Whyte’s DNA was also found underneath the fingernails of the defendant.

But faced with this seemingly irrefutable evidence, Majek brazenly tried to insist that there was, in fact, no blood found on his clothing – and the independent forensic expert who did the analysis was lying. 

‘All my clothes had no blood on it,’ he told jurors, speaking through an interpreter.  

In further farce, he was led through a compilation of CCTV from the night and denied he was the figure seen following Ms Whyte, despite accepting he was wearing identical clothes in footage captured at the hotel minutes earlier. 

He repeatedly told the jury: ‘This is not me.’

Majek also insisted he had never so much as noticed Ms Whyte before – despite the fact she had dyed blue hair and he was caught on camera staring at her for several hours that night. 

In her closing speech to the jury, Ms Heeley said: ‘I suggest that his answers to you now are laughable.

‘He is trying to meet the overwhelming evidence – and he has failed.

‘His suggestion that an independent forensic scientist is not telling the truth is an insult, quite frankly, to her integrity. 

‘That is an insult to you, because he cannot stand before you and admit what he has done.’

Following the verdicts, Carla Harris, a senior crown prosecutor from the Crown Prosecution Service, said: ‘Rhiannon Whyte should have been able to go to work and come home safely, but Deng Chol Majek robbed her of her life and future.

‘He attacked her for no reason and callously left her bleeding on a station platform.

‘He then appeared to rejoice in his actions, having been caught laughing and dancing on footage an hour later.

‘Although nothing can bring Rhiannon back, I hope these convictions provide some sense of justice to her family and friends.’