LONDON // James Moss and Philip Spence have been friends for 22 years, Southwark Crown Court heard on Monday.
Moss met the hammer attacker when he was just 10 years old after both resorted to petty crime to help bring cash into their family homes.
The day after Spence brutally attacked the Al Najjar sisters Khulood, 36, Ohoud, 34, and Fatima, 31, with a hammer in their central London hotel room on April 6 Spence took a bag containing the stolen valuable to Moss’s flat.
Moss welcomed Spence into his flat where the stolen phones were tested with SIM cards, including one belonging to Moss’s partner Carly Baker.
Photos on the stolen phones revealed a computer desk in Moss’s flat and a selfie of Moss and were “clearly being tested” before being sold on the black market, the prosecution said.
Christopher Martin, defending Moss, said: “In the 22 years Mr Moss has known Mr Spence the only contact between the two is always when Mr Spence requires something of Mr Moss – temporary accommodation financial assistance or to store things as Mr Spence is moving around.”
Moss believed he was simply storing belongings for the hammer attacker, his lawyer said.
But when Spence asked him to rummage through the suitcase and check the mobile phones were working he realised they were stolen.
The product of a “difficult upbringing”, Moss was locked up as a juvenile for committing a street robbery.
But he then attempted to turn his life around, enrolling in college and completing five GCSEs.
By 2001, Moss had a son and was working to support him while completing an arts and design degree.
Moss, who holds 19 convictions for 22 previous offences, has racked up multiple convictions for dishonesty.
His most recent conviction was for a burglary committed with Spence in May 2004.
On Monday, Moss was given a 21-month jail sentence suspended for two years after admitting one count of handling stolen goods.
He is also subject to a four-month curfew and will be electronically tagged and monitored between 8pm and 6am.
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