[London hotel attack left woman with skull](http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/oct/08/london-hotel-attack-skull-uae-hammer)
The half-sister of three women who were brutally attacked with a claw hammer during a night-time raid on their London hotel room, broke down in court as she remembered discovering them covered in blood.
Ohoud, Khulood and Fatima al-Najjar, from the United Arab Emirates, were staying at the four-star Cumberland hotel, just off Oxford Street, on a family holiday when they were beaten round the head in a “vicious and sustained” attack and left for dead, Southwark crown court heard.
Philip Spence, 32, admits grievous bodily harm against the three women but denies attempted murder.
Spence bludgeoned Ohoud, 34, with such force that her skull was split open as her nine-year-old nephew cowered under the sheets next to her, the jury was told.
Sheika al-Mheiri, the younger half-sister of the women, buried her face and cried when she told jurors she believed Ohoud was dead. She missed the attack by minutes, having gone to visit her brother, who was staying on another floor with the lock left on the latch for her return.
As she walked back along the corridor she heard her two nieces screaming from inside the room before she was let in.
“[My niece] had a lot of blood on her nightclothes,” she told the court via video-link from Abu Dhabi.
“I saw the blood but still I am confused about what’s happening. Then I saw her [Ohoud’s] head. Half of her head was damaged, I thought she was dead.”
She then turned to discover her two sisters in the adjoining room lying on the floor passing in and out of consciousness. “There was blood everywhere so I took the kids out,” she added. The women has been sharing the room with Khulood’s two daughters aged 11 and seven and her son aged nine.
The first paramedic to treat the three sisters told jurors she had never seen “such excessive violence used before”.
Joanna Griffin, of the London ambulance service, described how Ohoud’s skull had been “cracked like an egg” and brain tissue the size of a tennis ball was protruding from her skull. She told the court: “I’ve never seen anything like that before in my career.
“I assumed It was a huge force to make that kind of injury. I’ve been to a lot of incidents where violence has been used, fights, stabbings, shootings, but I’ve never seen a trauma like that before. I’ve never seen such excessive violence used before.”
Ohoud, who lost part of her brain, can no longer speak and had to have one eye removed, is never expected to recover from the attack.
Spence, from Harlesden in north-west London, is also standing trial for conspiracy to commit aggravated burglary alongside Thomas Efremi, 57, from Islington, north London.
The trial continues.
We were planning to stay in a hotel in London for our next visit as our house is rented out...I'm very skeptical about it now. The attacker probably knew the women were from Gulf and hence loaded.
We were planning to stay in a hotel in London for our next visit as our house is rented out...I'm very skeptical about it now. The attacker probably knew the women were from Gulf and hence loaded.
I really really enjoyed my visit to London. I think this was an anomaly. One should take basic precautions, including never leaving your hotel room open or letting in anyone your suspicious off, but beyond that, you gotta live your life.
I really really enjoyed my visit to London. I think this was an anomaly. One should take basic precautions, including never leaving your hotel room open or letting in anyone your suspicious off, but beyond that, you gotta live your life.
That's true. I just hope it wasn't connected to Islamophobia.
Btw, I know I sound scared to go back but Britain is my home. :D
That's true. I just hope it wasn't connected to Islamophobia.
Btw, I know I sound scared to go back but Britain is my home. :D
We stayed at the Hyatt Churchill. Its near all the major sites, so we toured on foot from Kensington Palace all the way to the Eye. Stayed out late with the wife sightseeing and never felt insecure or threatened in any way. Really its probably safer then NY in London. You just have to enjoy your time, be glad that psycho is of the streets. Tragic for those poor women, but at least they survived.
Media has an interesting way of focusing on some anomalies that involve crime done by Muslims calling them terrorists and not focusing on these sorts of anomalous crimes done on Muslims by others.
The fact is all crime is Alhumdulillah anomalous ... But the way they are reported makes some crimes seem less significant than others ... For politically motivated reasons.
If this was an Islamophobia related attack ... That Islamophobia comes from the way the media demonises Muslims and I am wondering when people will start to clock on to the fact that the Media needs to be held legally responsible for some of these types of attacks.
If this was an Islamophobia related attack ... That Islamophobia comes from the way the media demonises Muslims and I am wondering when people will start to clock on to the fact that the Media needs to be held legally responsible for some of these types of attacks.
Not so easy to be held legally responsible. The people who run the media have their motives and are powerful folks.
Media has an interesting way of focusing on some anomalies that involve crime done by Muslims calling them terrorists and not focusing on these sorts of anomalous crimes done on Muslims by others.
The fact is all crime is Alhumdulillah anomalous ... But the way they are reported makes some crimes seem less significant than others ... For politically motivated reasons.
If this was an Islamophobia related attack ... That Islamophobia comes from the way the media demonises Muslims and I am wondering when people will start to clock on to the fact that the Media needs to be held legally responsible for some of these types of attacks.
The media and society have a mutually parasitic relationship (if that makes any sense). They feed off each other. Its hard to discern which influences the other more.
The media and society have a mutually parasitic relationship (if that makes any sense). They feed off each other. Its hard to discern which influences the other more.
The media is not a phemonenon like society ... it is a tool used by corporations and governments ... to influence society, then it picks up the elements that it invigorates to produce more of what came earlier ... It's not hard to work that out at all.
The media is not a phemonenon like society ... it is a tool used by corporations and governments ... to influence society, then it picks up the elements that it invigorates to produce more of what came earlier ... It's not hard to work that out at all.
Media only shows what the Audience wants to see. Fox news here in the US would be nothing but for the Millions who exist to lap it all up. Corporations pay too more efficiently disseminate to a per-existing audience. The media didnt create conservatism for example, it was already there to be exploited. Now it works to further such philosophy and fosters its evolution. So which really came first?
Media only shows what the Audience wants to see. Fox news here in the US would be nothing but for the Millions who exist to lap it all up. Corporations pay too more efficiently disseminate to a per-existing audience. The media didnt create conservatism for example, it was already there to be exploited. Now it works to further such philosophy and fosters its evolution. So which really came first?
If you understood my post Med911 this response would not have come ...
Something very strange about the story being fed to us by the media. Off-course media is giving out controlled information. I dont believe that this guy is the actual murderer. Alot of things not right in this news. Looks like alot of money paid to protect the real murderers and others to hide the actual story. I think it’s revenge of some sort by one or more family members who used the local resources to get this done. I think Spence was only tipped off by the real murderers to go get the valuables’ bag & drop his hammer there so to set him up as the murderer.