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Marv

Trusted Member
One of the victims of a hammer attack at a London hotel has been left with 5% brain function and has lost her left eye, police said.

The woman, from the United Arab Emirates, was attacked with her two sisters in their room at the Cumberland Hotel, Marble Arch on 6 April.

Philip Spence, 32, of no fixed abode, has been remanded in custody charged with three counts of attempted murder.

He also appeared in court charged with one count of aggravated burglary.

He is due to appear at Southwark Crown Court on 17 April.

A Met Police spokesman said the main victim had suffered life threatening head and facial injuries, and had lost her left eye and significant quantities of blood.

Doctors have assessed that she has 5% brain function, although her other organs are in good working order, the spokesman added.

Another sister suffered two fractures to her skull, a broken left arm and a fracture to her cheekbone and is expected to remain in hospital for a considerable time.

The third sister has a fracture to her skull and a ruptured left eardrum. She was released from hospital on 8 April but readmitted on 9 April with severe head pains.




http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-27000875
 
It really sounds like the eye is the least of it. His co-defendents are being charged with receiving stolen goods. Was this a robbery gone wrong?
 
Doesn't get much more cowardly than violence against females, unless the victim is also a child or elderly. Lock this arsehole away.
 
What are his chances for being locked away for a long time? He is a monster.

My heart goes out to these sisters. I hope that they get to see justice.
 
One of the victims of a hammer attack at a London hotel has been left with 5% brain function and has lost her left eye, police said.
So, would that basically mean that she has enough functioning left to sustain life, breathing and heart rate, but not much of anything else?
 
A man who beat three sisters with a claw hammer in a London hotel while their children slept alongside them has been found guilty of attempted murder.

[...]

Spence had admitted the attack, but denied attempted murder.

Ohoud Al-Najjar, 34, was repeatedly hit as her nine-year-old nephew hid under the sheets next to her in bed, the prosecutor Simon Mayo QC said.

She survived the attack, but despite undergoing emergency neurosurgery she can no longer speak and lost one eye.

Her sisters Khulood, 36, and Fatima, 31, were also left with life threatening injuries and are still having medical treatment.

The family was visiting London on holiday.

In an impact statement, Fatima said seeing her sister Ohoud "breaks my heart.".

"She is now confined to a hospital bed for the rest of her life and unable to communicate, eat, see, move," she said.

"She can only squeeze my hand; she is a living dead sister."

Khulood and Fatima said they had been medically retired from their jobs because of their injuries, saying Spence "took away our futures".

Spence, from Harlesden in north-west London, was also found guilty of conspiracy to commit aggravated burglary, as was Thomas Efremi, 57, from Islington.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-29713301
 
He admitted attacking them with a hammer to the head, but denied trying to kill them? Uh huh. Good one.
 
Hammer attacker who beat three sisters in savage attack in front of children at top hotel is sentenced to 18 years in prison
  • Philip Spence jailed for life and told he would serve minimum of 18 years
  • 33-year-old attacked wealthy tourists as they slept at their London hotel
  • Khulood, Ohoud and Fatima Al-Najar were visiting from the UAE
  • Ohoud, whose brain was left protruding through skull, can no longer speak
  • Fatima lost all the bones in her nose in attack - in front of their children
  • Attack on April 6 happened at four-star Cumberland Hotel in Marble Arch
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-sentenced-18-years-prison.html#ixzz3JOXQdtRH
 
A crack addict who savagely beat three sisters in a 'vicious and merciless' claw hammer attack as they slept in a luxury hotel before leaving them for dead was jailed for life today.

Philip Spence, 33, was told he would serve a minimum of 18 years behind bars after he bludgeoned the three wealthy tourists repeatedly in front of their children at the the four-star Cumberland Hotel in central London.
[...]
Spence had been smoking crack for two days when he spotted a stash of designer bags through a partially open door as he prowled the corridors on the seventh floor of the hotel.

He had entered the hotel lobby at 1.13am, taking the lift to the fifth floor, before using the stairs to go up to the seventh floor, where the family were asleep in their shared adjoining rooms.

After creeping into their room, Spence began cramming iPads, phones and precious jewellery in a suitcase he found.

When Khulood woke up, Spence leant over her and yelled ‘Give me f****** money!’ before raining down blows with the hammer he had concealed in his jacket.

Her screams woke sister Fatima who, showing 'remarkable courage', desperately tried to stop the attack on her sister, whose two daughters, aged just 11 and seven, were also in the room.

Spence, however, simply turned his attention to her and struck her repeatedly on her head with the hammer,' he went on. 'Ohoud was subjected to an even more ferocious assault as she lay in her bed in the adjourning room. Her skull was smashed so badly that brain tissue protruded from a hole in her head.

'The attack on Ohoud was not witnessed by Khulood or Fatima. Spence may have attacked her after he had already savagely assaulted Khulood and Fatima and rendered them insensible.

'The attack on the women, shocking in its persistence and ferocity, was carried out in front of Khulood's children.'

The fourth sister Sheika Al-Mheiri returned later that night and discovered her sisters lying injured on the floor while blood had spattered on the walls.

Spence had fled the scene with a stolen suitcase stuffed with valuables including iPads, a white Cartier diamond encrusted watch worth £12,000, Louis Vuitton jewellery and mobile phones, and dumped the claw hammer just outside the hotel in Marble Arch, the court has heard.

Mr Mayo said CCTV footage captured Spence on a bus examining items he had stolen from the women.

'Bearing in mind that less than an hour earlier he had carried out a vicious and sustained attack with a hammer on three defenceless women, his concern appears to have the profit that he might make from his awful crime rather than the plight of his unfortunate victims,' he said.

Mr Mayo told the court that the scene confronting police and emergency services as they arrived at the hotel was 'horrific'.

'The unchallenged evidence is that the injuries to each of the victims were life threatening,' he said.

'The further unchallenged evidence was that Ohoud's survival was miraculous. Despite the skill of surgeons who saved her live, Ohoud Al-Najjar is barely recognisible as the woman who travelled to London for a family holiday.

'Her skull has been substantially reconstructed. She has been left blind in her left eye and is now severely disabled - both physically and mentally.'

After he was arrested, Spence told police they would not find any blood on the hammer because he 'licked it all off', the court heard.
[..]
William Nash, mitigating, said that while his client's offending was of 'particularly high seriousness', it was not of 'exceptionally high serious' to warrant a whole life term.

'It's extremely rare and in exceptional cases where people have committed actual murder,' he said.

Mr Nash said Spence had considered writing a letter to his victims and their families but he felt they found his crimes 'disgusting' and he did not think contacting them would make the situation better.

He added that Spence had consumed a 'large amount of drugs' at the time of the attack.

'He didn't know of any other crack head as big as him,' the barrister said. 'He can't forgive himself. He describes himself as being a totally different person. He is not unempathetic.'

Spence, who 'always had a hammer with him' has 37 convictions for 62 offences going back to 1993 including theft, drug offences, grievous bodily harm, robbery and burglary, the hearing was told.

He wore a hooded jacket and blue shirt in the dock and showed no reaction as he was sentenced.

Judge Leonard said: 'You were responsible for a sustained attack with a hammer on three women visiting this country from the United Arab Emirates.

'The ferocity of that attack was such you left one woman so badly injured she will never walk again unaided.'

Judge Leonard said it was relevant that Spence carried out his attack in front of Khulood's three children.

'It is impossible to say what long term affect this incident will have on the children,' he said.

'Hardened police officers and paramedics who attended the scene said what they saw was horrendous and the worst they had seen across their careers.

'Whatever sentence I impose cannot in the eyes of the family satisfactorily compensate for or reflect sufficiently the injuries you inflicted on these three women.'

Judge Leonard said he had 'no doubt' Spence had a difficult childhood after the court heard he was permanently excluded from school aged eight, smoked cannabis from the age of 11 and was addicted to crack cocaine and heroin aged 18.

Spence suffers from a personality disorder but not of a serious enough nature to warrant him being detained in hospital.
[...]
According to friend Emma Moss, the thug ‘always has a hammer with him’ and had once tried to batter his landlord with the weapon years before the hotel assault.

On the night of the attacks, Spence had been smoking crack for two days and was high when he spotted the ajar door while creeping through the corridors at the Cumberland Hotel.

It not the first time he had casually walked into the hotel unnoticed by security.

Spence started visiting the hotel when he was just 13 and would climb onto the roof with his friends to ‘play around’.

In the years that followed, Spence regularly slipped unnoticed into the upmarket hotel looking for an open linen cupboard to sleep in.

Just one month before he attempted to murder the wealthy sisters, Spence snatched a suitcase from a guest at the hotel.

And on the night of the attacks, CCTV images from the hotel show Spence strolling confidently through the lobby apparently unnoticed by security.

While demonstrating how he carried out the attack using a rolled up magazine, Spence lost his cool during the trial and managed to stop himself before he launched the prop at the prosecutor.

He had to be kept apart from ‘partner in crime’ Neofitos ‘Thomas’ Efremi when entering and leaving the dock after scuffling with him in the doorway.

The pair led a depraved lifestyle, funding their mutual crack addiction through benefits and flogging stolen goods.

Jobless Spence would regularly crash as Efremi’s north London pad, smoking drugs for days at a time, sleeping and borrowing his clothes.

Born in Islington, north London to an Italian mother and Jamaican father, Spence was expelled from school at the age of eight following an incident of sexual abuse.

He later attended Northampton Residential School but left with no qualifications and went to live in a hostel.

He was 19 when his descent into drugs began with cannabis, before his addiction to crack and heroin took hold.

Spence said he supported his habits through the dole and stealing until he was arrested and attended a rehab clinic in Weston-Super-Mare.

But after a six-year dry spell, homeless Spence relapsed into using crack and heroin in 2012.

He was in debt to dealers and told jurors he was scared and had been stabbed.

Spence had also threatened his landlord in Walthamstow, on 13 November, 2007.

He became abusive, snatched a hammer from his landlord’s bag and chased him, battering the door with a hammer and smashing the glass panels to try to reach his victim.

Spence also once flew into a rage after a man rebuffed his advances on a dating website, and threatened to stab the would-be suitor, as well as breaking into his home in Peckham.

Spence once attacked an innocent pedestrian in central London, kicking a box at the passer-by, spitting at him before punching the victim and biting him on his left shoulder.

While living in a care home for the homeless he launched a verbal attack on staff, throwing a glass of water which smashed against a wall and shouted he would ‘f*** [them] up’.

Just over two years later, Spence attempted to burgle a recruitment building in west London but was found hiding in the toilets after police chased him off the premises.

A year later, Spence punched a woman employee at Islington Borough Council offices in north London after he visited to raise issues with his accomodation.

She lost consciousness and was later taken to hospital after waking up the next day with serious head pain.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-sentenced-18-years-prison.html#ixzz3JOXQdtRH
 
My emotions are still very raw. Everything in my life has changed forever. That night I lost everything, my way of life, my sister Ohoud and also my ability to care for my children as much as I would like. I have also lost my job, as I am now medically retired due to my inability to do my job due to the injuries I suffered.

I am simply not myself anymore. I feel very lonely and have lay in a hospital bed without my sister, children and family. I am extremely upset and emotional. I cannot sleep for anxiety and flashbacks of the sounds of my children screaming. I have a plethora of medication, not to mention the numerous operations I have had. My looks have changed forever; I am not even the same person when I look in the mirror. I have been left without the full use of my left hand, and this is something that will never recover.

Everything I did before the incident has changed. I am now dependant on other people, to help me wash, to drive me to assist me when I walk. I now am fearful of strangers and do not feel comfortable when I am alone. When that man attacked myself and my sisters, and stole our belongings, he took far more than our property; he took away our futures, things that I had planned; dreams that I had for my family and children.

He also stole my children's innocence. They will never view the world in the same way. They do not trust anyone. They are now fearful to be alone and do not want to leave home. Nora and Fatima cry in their sleep and cannot sleep alone. They cannot even bear to visit their Aunty Ohoud. Yet they do not want to talk about what happened and I am scared they are bottling it all up. The full impact on the children cannot be fully comprehended until they grow up.

Ohoud has lost everything. I recall the moment when I was told she was going to pass away and feeling as though I did not want to live without her. She is now bound to a hospital bed for the rest of her life unable to communicate, to have a family and become the woman she was destined to be.

My sister Fatima and I both feel very strongly about what is considered to be justice for Philip Spence. I will say that 100 years in prison will not be enough. It means nothing to me that he will be in prison, I want him to feel the pain he has caused us and believe vehemently in an eye for an eye as is the justice in my own country. While I respect the laws of the UK I cannot say I feel justice will be done simply by sending him to prison.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-sentenced-18-years-prison.html#ixzz3JOXQdtRH
 
Minimum of 18 years to serve even considering his past record? Seriously at a loss for words, especially after reading that victim's statement.

Oh, I found words: shit like this leaves me :sour:
 
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