LONDON // A hammer wielding thug who bludgeoned three Emirati sisters in a London hotel wept in court on Monday as he admitted to having a “temper”.
Philip Spence, 32, dealt at least 13 blows to the defenceless women in front of their children at the Cumberland Hotel near Marble Arch, central London.
He "always had a hammer with him" and boasted he licked the weapon clean after battering his victims in their rooms, jurors were told.
Khuloud Al Najjar, 36, and her sisters Ohoud, 34, and Fatima, 31, suffered fractured skulls and life-threatening injuries in the raid.
Spence broke into their suite in the middle of the night and shouted demanded they hand over their money before robbing them of valuables and leaving them for dead on April 6.
He initially denied the savage attacks on the women who were visiting the British capital from the UAE but confessed in the face of “overwhelming evidence”.
Spence, of, Alperton, north-west London, admits three counts of causing grievous bodily harm with intent and one count of aggravated burglary.
But he denies three counts of attempted murder and one count of conspiracy to commit aggravated burglary.
On Monday, Spence took to the witness box at Southwark Crown Court and dabbed his eyes while telling jurors he had never received help for his anger management issues.
He first visited the Cumberland Hotel when he was just 13 and would take the lift to the roof with his friends to look at Oxford Street and play around.
“You would walk through the front door and just go upstairs in the lift,” he said.
When he became homeless, he would regularly use hotels for somewhere to eat and sleep, he said, by sleeping in the maid’s cleaning closets and scavenging food from trays left outside rooms.
Born in Islington, north London to an Italian mother and Jamaican father, Spence was expelled from school at just eight years old for sexual abuse.
He later attended Northampton Residential School but left with no qualifications and went to live in a hostel.
Speaking very softly in the witness box, Spence said his late father had died in 2000 following an injury that disabled him.
He was about 19 years old when his descent into drugs began with cannabis, leading him to become addicted to crack and heroin.
Spence said he supported his habits through state handouts and stealing until he was arrested and attended a rehab clinic in Weston-Super-Mare.
When asked about the convictions he had received for assault he replied: "I have a temper."
“Is that something you have tried to deal with,’ asked his lawyer, William Nash.
“I have tried, I couldn’t get any assistance,’ he said
After a six-year dry spell, homeless Spence relapsed into using crack and heroin in 2012.
At the time of the attack he was in debt to drug dealers and told jurors he was scared, trying to make up the debt, and had been stabbed.
Spence’s evidence will resume on Tuesday morning.
Earlier maxillofacial consultant surgeon Ashraf Messiha said it was “miraculous” Ohoud survived Spence’s brutal onslaught.
She was found with brain protruding from a hole in her head and has been confined to a bed since the attack.
Mesh titanium plates were implanted in her skull only after the brain’s swelling had reduced.
Her upper jaw was cracked in two and her teeth smashed with what appeared to be the claw end of the hammer, Mr Messiha told jurors.
She still struggles with swallowing and speech and is not expected to fully recover, the court heard.
But she has made some progress and can now make movements such as pick up a pair of glasses and place them on her face, Mr Messihasaid.
“In my opinion it is a miraculous recovery and it is not just in my opinion, it is all my colleagues,” he said.
“We were actually not expecting her to survive.”
Fatima suffered three brain injuries, a blow to the back of her head so hard it pushed the skull into her brain and a fracture to the left side of her skull.
She now suffers a deformity of the nose and appeared in court with a large plaster covering the centre of her face.
She also sustained a perforated eardrum and has a damaged facial nerve.
Khuloud’s eye sockets were shattered, her forehead and jaw fractured and a facial nerve damaged.
She sustained a fracture to her lower left arm where she had desperately tried to protect herself.
Forensic pathologist, Dr Ashley Feagan-Earl, estimated Fatima suffered at least three blows from the hammer, Khuloud a minimum of six blows and Ohoud a minimum of four blows.
The level of force was severe, he said.
On the evening after the attacks Spence boasted to friend Emma Moss that he had robbed £50,000 (Dh294,932) of valuables from a hotel room.
Co-defendant Neofitos “Thomas” Efremi, 57, has confessed to making 10 withdrawals totalling £5,000 using stolen bank cards after Spence took them to him after theattacks.
Efremi, of, Islington, north London, denies conspiracy to commit aggravated burglary.
Co-defendant James Moss, 33, has admitted handling stolen goods including mobile phones, handbags and jewellery.
Moss, of, Stroud Green, north London, will be sentenced later.
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