Police in the United Kingdom encouraged the family of a hotel worker who was murdered by an asylum seeker to moderate their public statements out of concern that the killing could trigger anti-immigration protests.
27-year-old Rhiannon Whyte was stabbed 23 times with a screwdriver in October 2024. Her killer, Deng Majek, was a Sudanese national and was later sentenced to 29 years in prison.
The killing came just months after the Southport child murders, which sparked anti-migrant riots and demonstrations across parts of the UK. Whyte’s mother, Siobhan, said police were concerned about the possibility of the murder prompting further unrest, saying they didn’t want “another Southport.”
“Did they tell us what to say? No. Did they guide us so it didn't look so aggressive? Maybe. I was aggressive – they toned it down,” she said, according to the Daily Mail.
Upon telling Whyte's family that she would be taken off life support, officers removed migrants from the Park Inn Hotel.
“Those migrants were out within two hours – I think that's because [the police] feared violence,” Siobhan said.
Following the revelation that Majek had arrived in the UK on a small boat just three months before the attack, Siobhan publicly accused Prime Minister Keir Starmer of having “blood on his hands.”
The allegations that police pressured the family come after a shocking report about the UK’s Research, Information and Communications Unit (RICU), which has been working to manage public reaction to multiculturalism within the UK. In multiple instances, the unit has been influencing public statements made by the family members of victims in racial cases across the country.
“You can see their fingerprints all over the statements released by the families of victims in these volatile situations – they usually have a similar tone,” a source previously told the Daily Mail.
