Asylum seeker stalked hotel worker 'before stabbing her 23 times'

AN asylum seeker was seen dancing and laughing after stabbing a hotel worker more than 20 times on a railway station platform and leaving her for dead, a murder trial jury has heard.

- MATTHEW COOPER

Deng Chol Majek was “clearly excited about what he had done” after inflicting a total of 23 stab wounds on Rhiannon Skye Whyte, mainly to her head, at Walsall’s Bescot Stadium station, Wolverhampton Crown Court was told.

Majek denies murder and possessing a screwdriver as an offensive weapon.

Jurors heard how Majek, who is from Sudan and claims to be 19, was caught on CCTV as he followed Ms Whyte from the town’s Park Inn hotel, then being used to house asylum seekers, on October 20 last year.

Ms Whyte, whose shift had finished at 11pm, was heard screaming during a phone call to a friend and was found by a train guard on the platform minutes later, prosecutor Michelle Heeley KC told the court.

Opening the Crown's case against Majek, Ms Heeley told the court he followed the 27-year-old from the hotel where he was living.

Ms Heeley said: “He followed her down on to the train platform at the Bescot Stadium station and then he attacked her. Stabbing her over and over again with a screwdriver.

“He left her bleeding to death and then casually went back to his hotel. We say you can be sure he is guilty of murder.”

Jurors were told that Ms Whyte had worked at the hotel for about three months, helping with things including cleaning and serving food, while the defendant was resident in room 309.

Ms Heeley added: “During the evening one of Rhiannon’s coworkers noticed this defendant. He seemed to be staring at Rhiannon and the women she was working with.