Mother of woman stabbed 23 times demands all illegal migrants face 'Rhiannon's law'

The Conservatives have demanded that all illegal migrants be electronically tagged and subjected to curfews, as the mother of a woman murdered by a failed asylum seeker led calls for a new law to bear her daughter's name.

Shadow home secretary Chris Philp has written to Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood urging the Government to enshrine the measures in legislation - to be known as Rhiannon's law - after campaigning by Siobhan Whyte, whose 27-year-old daughter Rhiannon was stabbed 23 times and killed in October 2024.

The killer was Deng Chol Majek, a national of Sudan who had identified Rhiannon as his target while she was at work at the asylum hotel where he was housed. Despite having had asylum claims rejected in both Germany and Italy, Majek had been permitted to stay in the UK.

After the killing he displayed no remorse, with footage captured him dancing and laughing on CCTV. He was jailed for life and must serve a minimum of 29 years.

In his letter to the Home Secretary, Mr Philp called for migrants in hotels and other asylum accommodation to be tagged and placed under curfew, The Telegraph has reported. He also urged the Government to deport all illegal immigrants within a week of arrival, an existing Tory policy, and said that if ministers refused to adopt the broader plan, they should "at least introduce a bill in Rhiannon's name to include tagging of illegal immigrants living in hotels and HMOs and curfews."

Mr Philp pointed to a series of recent cases to support his argument, including the arrest last month of an Afghan national living in an HMO following reports of children and families being harassed outside a primary school. He also cited convictions of illegal immigrants in asylum hotels for "multiple rapes and sexual assaults, including on young girls."

"These proposals come from a bereaved mother who has had direct and tragic experience of the consequences of uncontrolled illegal immigration. I hope that you will treat her ideas seriously," he wrote.

Ms Whyte, who made the journey from the West Midlands to meet Mr Philp in London in March, set out a series of demands, chief among them that every migrant arriving in the UK should face instant criminal background checks and health screening to detect any diseases entering the country.

Questioning why Majek had been permitted to stay in Britain despite being rejected by two other European countries, she said: "Why was he denied asylum but allowed here? Surely that should have been looked into?"

She added: "The Government needs to stop the boats, stop them coming. But if they can't do that, because clearly they are not going to do it, then we need tagging, curfews, ID checks and medical checks. It needs to be put in place. They need to stop putting them in hotels and HMOs and instead put them in restricted accommodation like barracks, as you would with any other criminal who broke into any other country."

Ms Whyte told The Telegraph that her daughter's murder had left her with a "life sentence" of her own. She said: "Where's our human rights? You've got the Left saying they've got these rights, they've got this, they've got that. But would they have them in their home? No. Would they have them around their families, their daughters? No.

"If they come into this country undocumented and commit these crimes, they should have no human rights. We wouldn't be allowed into another country without passport documents. We'd be arrested and deported."

She was clear that her campaign was targeted specifically at those who broke the law. "I haven't got anything against the migrants that come over legally. That's not an issue. It is these men that are doing these crimes that need to be stopped," she said.