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This is the moment an asylum seeker was filmed laughing and dancing just minutes after allegedly stabbing a woman who worked at the migrant hotel where he lived, a court has heard.
Sudanese national Deng Chol Majek, who claims he is 19, is on trial at Wolverhampton Crown Court accused of the ‘vicious’ murder of Rhiannon Whyte, 27, as she waited to catch the train home after a late shift at the Park Inn Hotel, Walsall.
Ms Whyte was stabbed 23 times with a screwdriver on a deserted train platform at Bescot station at 11.13pm on October 20 last year. She died three days later.
Today, a jury were shown CCTV of a man who prosecutors claim is the defendant in the aftermath of the attack.
After running up the stairs to the station platform, the man is seen throwing Ms Whyte’s phone into a nearby river, where it was later recovered by police divers.
CCTV then showed the individual visiting two separate off-licences, with prosecutors alleging that he bought alcohol at the second one. The man returned to the Park Inn Hotel at 12.13am.
The jury were shown footage that had been captured on a camera phone by another resident of the hotel allegedly showing Majek laughing and dancing to music in the hotel car park around 20 minutes later.
The eight-second clip shows the man alleged to be Majek swaying to music, before the camera zooms in to show the sirens of emergency vehicles in the distance.
Michelle Heeley KC said the footage showed he was 'dancing and laughing, clearly excited about what he had done', when she opened the case against Majek on Monday.
As she walked the jury through the footage today, Ms Heeley asked Det Sgt Rebecca Haywood: 'We can see blue lights flashing on that clip, where were those lights coming from?'
The officer replied: 'Those lights were coming from the train station.'
Ms Heeley said: 'That's the emergency services at the train station at that point?'
'That's correct, yes,' Det Sgt Haywood replied.
Majek was seen by one employee at the hotel drinking, smoking and ‘having a good time’ after the fatal attack, the jury heard.
Tyler English, who worked as a ‘housing officer’ at the hotel, told the court he had rushed to the deserted station platform after hearing of an incident, to find his colleague lying gravely injured.
Mr English described how he returned to the hotel after Ms Whyte was taken away by paramedics at around midnight.
He described seeing the defendant – whom he knew by the initials DC - among a group of other migrants in the hotel car park.
Earlier that night, around an hour before the attack, he had seen Majek looking ‘very low, almost seemed sad’, so he decided to approach him in the car park to check on him.
‘At this point, it was just drinking, smoking and chatting among his group of friends,’ he told the court.
He described how the group were listening to music which was playing from a portable speaker.
‘They were almost like having a good time, in a sense,’ he said. ‘At that point, it was smoking and drinking.’
Michelle Heeley KC, prosecuting, asked him: ‘How did his mood seem then compared to his mood earlier?’
Mr English replied: ‘His mood was definitely a lot better, seeing him in the parking lot compared to earlier on in the evening, so I went up to see if he was OK.’
Opening the trial on Monday, prosecutor Michelle Heeley KC told jurors that, at the time of the attack, Ms Whyte had been on the phone to a friend, who heard three screams as she was struck 'over and over again' at 11.13pm. The line went dead shortly afterwards.
She was found by a train driver slumped on the platform 11 minutes later, but was too seriously injured to be saved and died surrounded by family on October 23.
Ms Heeley said: 'He left her bleeding to death and then casually went back to his hotel.'
Police were ‘very quickly’ able to trace the defendant because he was wearing ‘very distinctive clothing’ and made an arrest shortly afterwards at the hotel, Ms Heeley said.
They found him in possession of clothes including the jacket the attacker from the CCTV could be seen wearing, as well as jewellery and a pair of sandals, all of which were found to have Ms Whyte’s blood on them, the court heard.
Ms Whyte’s DNA was found underneath the fingernails of the defendant, the jury were told. He is alleged to have disposed of both the screwdriver and Ms Whyte’s phone before returning to the hotel.
Ms Heeney said: ‘The prosecution say this was a murder because the person who attacked Rhiannon carried out a vicious and frenzied attack. They meant to seriously hurt Rhiannon, to kill her, and they carried out the attack by stabbing her repeatedly in the head with a weapon.
‘We say you can be sure it was this defendant and no one else. He can be seen on the CCTV staring at Rhiannon, he then follows her from the hotel to the station. CCTV then follows him all the way back to the hotel.
‘His clothes have her blood on, his fingernails have her DNA under them, she had injuries from where she tried to defend herself.’
The defendant was said to accept he was at the hotel that night, but claims the issue is one of misidentification.
The prosecutor said that Ms Whyte had worked at the hotel for around three months, where she helped ‘with all manner of things including cleaning and serving food’.
Majek lived at the hotel, which had ‘been turned into a hotel for asylum seekers’.
‘He also claimed to be 18 (at the time), but there are doubts about that,’ Ms Heeley said.
Majek denies murdering Ms Whyte and a second charge of possessing a screwdriver in a public place.
The trial continues.