LONDON // Jurors heard yesterday how a man accused of supplying the hammer used in the brutal attack of three Emirati sisters in their hotel room raided the bank accounts of one of them with stolen bank cards.
On Sunday, April 6, Philip Spence committed a violent assault on Khuloud Al Najjar, 36, and her sisters Ohoud, 34, and Fatima, 31, at their hotel room in central London.
On the night of the attack, Spence left Thomas Efremi’s home in Islington, north London, and made his way to the Cumberland Hotel near Marble Arch. Spence committed the violent assault on the sisters in their hotel room with a claw hammer that left all three with fractured skulls and life-threatening injuries.
Efremi’s role in the alleged conspiracy was to assist after the event with flogging the spoils of the raid, said prosecutor Simon Mayo QC.
After Spence fled the hotel carrying the stolen brown suitcase stuffed with valuables, he made his way to Efremi’s flat via two night buses.
Just five minutes after Spence arrived at the flat, Efremi headed out with stolen bank cards belonging to the youngest victim, Fatima.
She had kept her Pin hidden in her wallet inside her pink handbag, Southwark Crown Court heard.
Efremi caught a taxi and demanded that the driver took him to several cashpoints in town where he withdrew £5,000 (Dh29,641) in cash from the cards before they were blocked by the banks.
Two days later CCTV cameras captured Efremi splashing out on a new mobile phone in a Vodafone shop and visiting a Sports Direct store in Angel, north London.
Efremi, 57, refused to be interviewed following his arrest but referred to Spence as a “hotel creeper” – someone who breaks into hotels looking for somewhere to sleep.
“Let me make no bones about this, the prosecution say that Efremi knew a good deal more about what Philip Spence’s purpose was in visiting hotels and it was not for the purpose of finding somewhere to lay his head,” Mr Mayo said.
Efremi has racked up previous convictions dating back to 2003 for multiple offences of shoplifting.
He was convicted in June 2009 for possession of a false UK passport after trying to withdraw £18,000 from a bank.
In 2011, Efremi obtained details of a managing director at another bank and used them to request a new bank card under the assumed name.
Last year and this year he notched up further convictions after he was caught shoplifting.
Efremi uses a crutch to aid his walking and has attended each day of the trial in a smart suit and tie. He denies conspiracy to commit aggravated burglary.
The trial resumes on Monday.
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