{"id":398928,"date":"2026-01-30T15:03:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T15:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/398928\/"},"modified":"2026-01-30T15:03:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T15:03:08","slug":"asylum-seeker-sentenced-to-at-least-29-years-for-murdering-hotel-worker-rhiannon-whyte-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/398928\/","title":{"rendered":"Asylum seeker sentenced to at least 29 years for murdering hotel worker Rhiannon Whyte"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Rhiannon&#8217;s blood found on Majek&#8217;s clothespublished at 13:39 GMT<\/p>\n<p>13:39 GMT<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Speaking after the sentence, the Crown Prosecution Service referenced the weight of DNA evidence against Majek.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">One of the witnesses during the trial in October was forensic scientist Elizabeth Simpson, who told the jury that Whyte&#8217;s blood had been found on clothes, shoes and a ring worn by Majek.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Majek's room at the Park Inn Hotel in Walsall with trainers and clothes\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/5f639e69-c255-4828-8393-0b8c9f55eaeb.jpg.webp.webp\"  width=\"749\" height=\"421\" class=\"ssrcss-egie1y-Image edrdn950\"\/>Image source, BTP<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Simpson also told the court that the blood was a billion times more likely to come from Ms Whyte than anyone else.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Despite that, denied that there was any DNA evidence.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Cross-examining Majek during his evidence, prosecution barrister Michelle Heeley KC asked him why an independent forensic scientist was wrong.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I don\u2019t know why, because I\u2019m sure my stuff had no blood on it,&#8221; he replied.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Later in the trial he was asked why Rhiannon&#8217;s DNA had been found under his right fingernail.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He replied: &#8220;I never touched her, and there is no DNA.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The jury ultimately did not believe his evidence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rhiannon&#8217;s blood found on Majek&#8217;s clothespublished at 13:39 GMT 13:39 GMT Speaking after the sentence, the Crown Prosecution&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":398746,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-398928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=398928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/398746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=398928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=398928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=398928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}