Jury sworn in for Walsall hotel worker murder trial

A jury has been sworn in the trial of a murder suspect accused of fatally stabbing a hotel worker at a railway station.

Rhiannon Whyte, 27, died in hospital three days after being found injured at Walsall’s Bescot Stadium station last October.

Deng Chol Majek, 19, pleaded not guilty at a previous hearing to her murder and a separate count of possessing a screwdriver as an offensive weapon at the station.

Mr Majek, understood to be an asylum seeker, was assisted by a Sudanese dialect Arabic interpreter at Wolverhampton Crown Court on Monday as a jury of six men and six women was sworn in.

Prosecutors allege Mr Majek, formerly a resident at the Park Inn hotel in Bescot Crescent, used a screwdriver to attack Ms Whyte.

After the jury was sworn in, trial judge Justice Soole said the case against him would be opened by prosecutor Michelle Heeley KC on Tuesday.

“Any case involving a death raises natural emotions,” the judge told the jury.

“But the absolute duty of you all is to set emotion aside, and in a cool and calm way, consider the evidence utterly dispassionately.”