Hospital bomb suspect caught on video telling police how patient talked him down

Body-worn camera footage of Mohammed Farooq being arrested in the grounds of St James’s Hospital, in Leeds, has been shown at his trial in Sheffield.

A jury has seen body-worn camera footage of an NHS worker telling armed police a patient talked him out of exploding a bomb at St Jame’s Hospital In Leeds (Paul Barker/PA) (PA Archive)

An NHS worker was captured on body-worn camera footage telling armed police that a patient talked him out of exploding a bomb at a hospital, a jury has seen.

Video of the arrest of Mohammed Farooq, 28, at St James’s Hospital in Leeds was shown at his trial at Sheffield Crown Court last week.

Prosecutors have told a jury that Farooq was planning to detonate his viable bomb, which was modelled on the one used in the 2013 Boston Marathon attack, but was talked out of it by patient Nathan Newby, who was having a break outside the hospital in the early hours of January 20.

Farooq eventually allowed Mr Newby to use his phone to call 999 and armed officers arrived at the hospital soon afterwards, the court heard.

The footage from two officers’ cameras was played to the jury on Thursday afternoon.

It shows the police getting out of their vehicle and calmly asking Farooq, who has his hands in the air, to walk towards them, and he appears totally compliant as they handcuff him.

He tells the officers there is a gun on the nearby bench and one of them tells him: “I’m not here to give you any aggro. We’re just here to…

“Obviously something’s going wrong in your life, or whatever, and what’s going on, man?

“Do you need to speak someone, bud? Is that what you need?”

Farooq replies: “I just need time out, that’s all.”

After one officer asks the defendant if there is anything else they need to know about “to keep myself and my colleagues and everything else safe”, Farooq points out a bag, saying: “There’s a bomb inside of it.”

He tells the officers it is made from a pressure cooker and has gunpowder inside.

One officer says: “And how’ve you managed to make that then?”

Farooq says: “Just made it, innit.”

The officer says: “Just Googling, yeah?”

Farooq explains that he planned to detonate the bomb by lighting it.

Later, one of the officers says to the defendant: “How long have you been here for? Ages?”

Farooq replies: “Since about 12. Since I bumped into the other guy. He talked me down.”

The defendant later tells the officer there is a knife and and an axe in his Seat Ibiza car, parked nearby.

Farooq denies preparing acts of terrorism, although he has admitted a number of other offences including possessing a pressure cooker bomb “with intent to endanger life or cause serious injury to property”.

Prosecutors allege that the defendant had also planned to attack the American base at RAF Menwith Hill, near Harrogate in North Yorkshire.

The jury has also been told that Farooq had a grievance against several of his former colleagues at St James’s Hospital, where he worked, and “had been conducting a poison pen campaign against them”.

Defence barrister Gul Nawaz Hussain KC has told the court his client was “ready and willing” to detonate the home-made bomb at the hospital because of a “sense of anger and grievance” towards work colleagues but was not motivated by Islamist extremism and not radicalised.

Mr Hussain said: “He will say his criminal actions were motivated by a deep-rooted – yet unjustified – sense of anger and grievance towards those that he worked with.”