Thomas Kwan admitted attempting to murder Patrick O’Hara by posing as a community nurse and administering a poison which he claimed was a Covid vaccine booster (Picture: Northumbria Police)
A GP who tried to kill his mother’s lover ‘in plain sight’ with a poisoned jab while posing as a Covid nurse has been jailed for more than 31 years.
Thomas Kwan wore a fake beard and hairpiece as part of an audacious plot to murder 72-year-old Patrick O’Hara ‘in the worst imaginable way’.
The 53-year-old wanted to inherit his mum Jenny Leung’s estate but the pair fell out over her plans to leave her house to Mr O’Hara.
Money-obsessed Kwan, who installed spyware on his mother’s laptop to keep track of her finances, also had a ‘morbid obsession’ with poisons and injected his victim with a chemical that gave him a rare and life-threatening disease.
In his victim statement, Mr O’Hara revealed he is no longer in a relationship with Kwan’s mother, Jenny Leung, and has moved out of their home in St Thomas Street, Newcastle.
The poison caused Mr O’Hara to suffer flesh-eating disease necrotising fascilitis – and surgeons had to cut away part of his arm to save his life.
He told Newcastle Crown Court: ‘This incident should have been the end of me.
‘The nature of what had occurred to my body has left me speechless. Had it have not been for medical intervention I am positive that, not only would I have lost my left arm, but my life as well.’
Jailing Kwan today for 31 years and five months, judge Mrs Justice Lambert told him: ‘It was an audacious plan to murder a man in plain sight and you very nearly succeeded in your objective.’
Victim Patrick O’Hara leaves Newcastle Crown Court with friends (Picture: PA)
Officers scoured CCTV and were able to track Kwan, still disguised as a nurse, back to a city centre hotel and then to his home in Ingleby Barwick, Teesside.
In his garage they discovered an array of dangerous chemicals which the GP had amassed.
On his computer, they found instructions on how to make the chemical weapon ricin.
It was first thought he had used ricin on Mr O’Hara but a poisons expert said iodomethane, which is used in pesticides, was more likely.
Kwan went on trial last month and changed his plea to guilty after the prosecution opened the case against him.
Paul Greaney KC, defending, said the GP was previously of positive good character, and had ‘ruined his life’.
He described Kwan’s disguise, when he passed himself off as a nurse, as ‘amateurish’ and ‘clumsy’.
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Source:: Metro
