News: Philip Spence admits hammer attack on 3 Emirati sisters in top London hotel

A man has admitted attacking three wealthy Arab sisters with a claw hammer in their London hotel room, but denies trying to kill them.

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Philip Spence, 32, from Hounslow, west London, left one of the women with just five per cent brain function in the violent burglary at the four-star Cumberland Hotel near Marble Arch earlier this year.

Her two sisters suffered fractured skulls, and one was left with a broken arm in the attack in the early hours of April 6.

Spence has pleaded guilty to three counts of grievous bodily harm at London's Southwark Crown Court, and one count of aggravated burglary.

But he faces trial for the attempted murder of the women, who were visiting Britain from the UAE on a shopping and sightseeing trip.

Ohoud Al-Najar and her sisters, Kohloud and Fatima, were attacked with a claw hammer in their room in the early hours of Sunday April 6.

Police said at the time that one of the women suffered life-threatening head and facial injuries, lost her left eye and significant quantities of blood.  They said she has five per cent brain function as a result. 

Another sister suffered two fractures to her skull, a broken left arm and a fracture to her cheekbone, and the third sister had a fracture to her skull and a ruptured left eardrum.

Spence entered his guilty pleas last Wednesday but reporting restrictions were only lifted today.  In the trial, which is expected to begin tomorrow, he will face three charges of attempted murder and one of conspiracy to commit aggravated burglary.

A second man, 57-year-old Thomas Efremi, of Islington, north London, will also face one count of conspiracy to commit aggravated burglary.

Efremi pleaded guilty to fraud at an earlier hearing after withdrawing thousands of pounds from stolen credit cards.

Both men are being held in custody.

Another man, James Moss, 33, from Finsbury Park, north London admitted one charge of handing stolen goods, and prosecutors dropped one more charge of handing stolen goods against Carly Baker, of Finsbury Park.