LONDON // The hammer-wielding drug addict who tried to murder three Emirati sisters as they slept with their young children in a London hotel room was on Monday given a life sentence with a minimum term of 18 years.
Philip Spence, 33, bludgeoned the sisters from Sharjah and left them for dead in the early hours of April 6 in the Cumberland Hotel at Marble Arch.
The judge at Southwark Crown Court, Anthony Leonard QC, told him: “The ferocity of that attack was such that you left one of the women, Ohoud Al Najjar, so badly injured that she will never walk again unaided.”
Khuloud Al Najjar, 36, and her sisters Ohoud, 34, and Fatima, 31, suffered smashed skulls and life-threatening injuries in the bloodbath.
Spence brutally pounded Ohoud’s head with the hammer, destroying the left side of her skull and leaving her with just 5 per cent brain function. Khuloud and Fatima both suffered fractures to the skull and defensive injuries where they desperately fought against Spence’s onslaught.
Khuloud’s two daughters, aged 11 and 7, were also in the room. Ohoud and Khuloud’s nine-year-old son were asleep in the room next door.
Spence had been smoking crack for two days when he spotted that one of the room doors on the seventh floor of the hotel was partially open.
After the attack he strolled out of the hotel with a suitcase stuffed with valuables including a white diamond-encrusted Cartier watch worth £12,000 (Dh68,936) and Louis Vuitton jewellery.
Spence had an appalling criminal record for burglary and violence, with 37 convictions for 62 offences.
Judge Leonard told him: “Your evidence seemed to suggest it was Ohoud you attacked last. It was clear from the evidence that she was lying down in the bed when you attacked her and I can assume … that you intended to kill her and her sisters so there would be no adult left to identify you as the burglar.
“It is a fact that hardened police officers and paramedics who attended the scene described what they came across in there as horrific.”
He said it was “impossible to say what long-term effects this incident may have on the children”.
Spence suffers from a personality disorder but not serious enough to warrant his detention in a psychiatric hospital.
Throughout the trial he was accompanied by mental health workers who sat in the public gallery as the evidence was heard.
At one point during his cross examination Spence attempted to launch a rolled-up magazine, being used as a prop hammer, at the prosecuting counsel Simon Mayo QC.
After ordering that Spence serve a minimum of 18 years, the judge warned him: “It does not mean that you will be released at that point, only that you will be eligible for release.”
Spence, wearing a thick dark sports jacket and blue polo shirt, gave a small nod before he was led away to begin his sentence.
Neofitos “Thomas” Efremi, who conspired with Spence and supplied the hammer, was jailed for 14 years for conspiracy to commit aggravated burglary and two years and three months for fraud, the sentences to run concurrently.
He leant forward heavily on a crutch to hear the sentence, and hobbled out of the dock to the cells.
James Moss, who admitted handling stolen goods, was given a 21 month sentence suspended for two years.
He is also subject to a four-month curfew and will be electronically tagged and monitored between 8pm and 6am.
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