Abu Dhabi: The three Emirati sisters who suffered major injuries after a claw hammer attack in their London hotel last year arrived safely in the capital yesterday (Saturday) evening.
The eldest of the sisters, who had suffered the severest damage from the incident, is currently being treated at Shaikh Khalifa Medical City’s Khalifa Hospital in Abu Dhabi.
Hospital officials revealed that severe blows to the head resulted in a 40 per cent deformity due to brain damage that has left her with only five per cent brain function.
The sisters Ohoud, Khulood and Fatima were in London last year when a criminal entered the victims’ seventh-floor hotel suite after he had been smoking crack for two days, British officials said. Carrying a hammer, he bludgeoned the eldest sister, Ohou,d and caused the trio life-threatening injuries.
Abdul Rahman Ganem Al Mutaiwe’e, Ambassador to the UAE in London, told Gulf News: “The sisters have been receiving treatment during the past 10 months since the incident occurred on April 6 of last year. They have been transported via fully equipped medical plane that took them from London to Abu Dhabi.”
Philip Spence, 33, who was found guilty of bludgeoning the sisters, was given 27 years in prison on January 29, after an original sentence of 18 years.
“The victims’ family is very happy with the verdict. The updated sentence is guaranteed to stop him and potential transgressors in the future. UAE President His Highness Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, General Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, and Lieutenant General Shaikh Saif Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior, along with other UAE officials have all been working very closely ever since the incident occurred to make sure that all the services that the sisters could need would be provided to them,” he added.
The victims’ family declined to comment on the status of the sisters’ health and psychological condition.
“He [Spence] was known to carry a hammer and he was using a hammer as a defensive weapon as long ago as 2008,” Solicitor General Robert Buckland said earlier. “At some time during or after the attack he was sufficiently calculated to complete the burglary. He also had the presence of mind to dispose of the hammer,” he added.
Spence had reportedly seen designer bags from an opening in the door of the sisters’ suite when he was walking through the halls of the hotel’s seventh floor on the night of the incident. He packed iPads, jewellery and other valuables from their rooms.
