A small boat migrant who stabbed a British mother working at his asylum hotel to death in a random attack has been jailed for life with a minimum of 29 years.
Deng Chol Majek stabbed Rhiannon Whyte 23 times with a screwdriver as she talked to her best friend on the phone, three months after Majek is believed to have illegally entered the UK on a small boat.
The attack on a train station platform came after the mother-of-one, 27, finished a night shift on October 20 2023 and made the 90-second walk from the Park Inn Hotel in Walsall to the town’s Bescot Stadium station.
He was then seen dancing and swigging alcohol after returning to the hotel.
Ahead of sentencing at Coventry Crown Court, Ms Whyte’s mother, Donna, came face-to-face with her killer as she delivered a powerful statement.
She said: ‘It’s impossible for me to explain the pain I’m feeling. The impact of her death on my life is unmeasurable. She wasn’t just my daughter, but my best friend. It’s just not fair. I often feel that, to some extent, my life ended with her that day.’
Addressing Majek directly in the dock, she said: ‘My question to the person responsible is why? My head is telling me I should utterly hate you, but my heart tells me my love for Rhiannon overpowers this.
‘You will be forgotten as an evil nightmare.’
She finished by making a reference to his callous display of merriment after the killing, telling him: ‘Just one more thing: let me see you dancing now.’
Majek mounted a risible defence at trial 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.
In a further display of brazenness, Majek’s barrister revealed today that the killer continued to maintain his innocence.
Passing sentence, Mr Justice Soole said Majek would serve a life sentence with a minimum term of 29 years, telling him: ‘The evidence against you, in particular from CCTV and DNA, was overwhelming.
‘You continue to maintain you were the assailant and the court is thus left with no explanation for what possessed you to murder a member of hotel staff whom, together with her colleagues, had been serving and helping you and your fellow residents.’
He said the asylum seeker’s composure in the face of his horrific crimes was ‘chilling’.
Majek claimed to be 18 at the time of his attack but had no documentation, forcing authorities to conduct an age-assessment.
It emerged today that a report had concluded Majek was over the age of 21.
The judge said: ‘Having read the comprehensive report by two experienced assessors, I’m sure you are over the age of 21 at the date of your conviction and offence.’
He concluded Majek was likely 26 years old at the time of Ms Whyte’s murder.
Rhiannon Whyte, 27, was attacked moments after leaving work and died in hospital with her family by her side
Deng Chol Majek, who is from Sudan but arrived in the UK by small boat in July last year, was previously found guilty of murdering mother-of-one Rhiannon Whyte in October 2024
Ms Whyte had worked at the hotel for six months and had a five-year-old son
Ahead of today’s hearing, protesters including Tommy Robinson gathered outside Coventry Crown Court waving Union Jacks.
Ms Whyte’s sister Alex – who is now responsible for raising her son – also addressed the defendant in her statement, saying: ‘To Deng Majek, Rhiannon showed so much more courage than you. You continue to show no remorse and to take no responsibility for your cowardly actions.
‘We still don’t know or understand why you stalked, hunted and preyed upon Rhiannon. Cornering her before unleashing your vicious and unprovoked attack. For what purpose? Throughout this agonising court process, you have given us nothing.
‘Why her? What had she done to you to deserve this callous treatment? As if it was not hard enough to lose Rhiannon, we have had to endure a year and three months of heartache and pain, unable to grieve because of our fight for justice.
‘You took advantage of our judicial system with your blatant ignorance and arrogance, subjecting my family to painfully detailed witness statements which reduced Rhiannon to being spoken about as evidence rather than the beautiful human she was.’
She added: ‘Rhiannon was dehumanised at every turn throughout this process, by you and your cowardly defence.
‘You brutalised Rhiannon and then partied as if nothing had happened. You celebrated. You might as well have danced on her grave.’
Gurdeep Garcha KC, representing Majek, offered no mitigation on his behalf today – telling the court that the asylum seeker continued to protest his innocence.
He said: ‘When he was interviewed by probation officers in late November, the defendant maintained he was innocent of the offences of which the jury had convicted him.
‘The position today is the defendant maintains his denial and maintains his innocence.’
Ahead of today’s hearing, protesters including Tommy Robinson gathered outside Coventry Crown Court waving Union Jacks.
Ms Whyte’s family wore matching t-shirts with a picture of her face printed on the front.
Paying tribute to her sister, Alex Whyte told the court: Knowing Rhiannon as we did, we are all acutely aware of her beautiful nature. She was smart, kind, funny, thoughtful, caring, hardworking and most importantly she belonged to us. She was a piece of all of us and the best of us.
‘A mother, daughter, sister, aunty, niece, cousin, granddaughter, and friend to so many. Being alive to this only makes it harder to comprehend and accept that her bright future has been stolen from her and all of us so brutally.
‘The impact of her loss to those who love her is immeasurable. We now know from the evidence we had to listen to that she was brave. She fought for her life under a brutal, savage and frenzied attack from someone we see as inhuman, more like an animal.’
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.
The trial heard that Ms Whyte clocked off and walked 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.
Leaving Ms Whyte lying gravely injured on the station platform, 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.
Upon arrival in Britain in July 2024, Majek told authorities his birthday was January 1, 2006. But he had told German and Italian authorities he was born eight years earlier, on January 1 1998, making him 27.
Sickening video captured Majek dancing and laughing after the attack
Majek was also seen dancing down the corridors of the hotel
Police outside the Park Inn by Radisson Hotel in Bescot, Walsall – where Ms Whyte worked -in the aftermath of the attack
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 subsequent 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.
