GP who tried to poison mother’s partner with fake Covid jab to be sentenced

Dr Thomas Kwan was obsessed with money and developed a deep knowledge of poisons

Dr Thomas Kwan has been warned he faces a 35-year jail term for trying to kill 72-year-old Patrick O’Hara while posing as a nurse

A GP who disguised himself as a nurse and poisoned his mother’s partner with a fake Covid jab in a plot to murder him will be sentenced today.

Dr Thomas Kwan has been warned he faces a 35-year jail term after he admitted trying to killing Patrick O’Hara in an extraordinary plan that was motivated by money.

At a previous hearing, the 72-year-old victim told Newcastle Crown Court that the fake vaccination caused intense pain, making it seem as though his arm was on fire, and that he felt he should have died.

Mr O’Hara needed weeks of hospital treatment after developing a flesh-eating disease which required plastic surgery and he said the attack left him “a shell of an individual”.

Victim Patrick O’Hara (centre) with supporters at Newcastle Crown Court (Owen Humphreys/PA) (PA Wire)

Kwan, who was obsessed with money and developed a deep knowledge of poisons, planned his murder bid for months by writing fake letters, supposedly from the NHS, offering Mr O’Hara a home visit in January this year.

The married 53-year-old was motivated by greed after finding out that his mother, Jenny Leung, had made a will which allowed Mr O’Hara to stay in her home should she die before him.

The couple have split up since her son’s attempt on his life.

Peter Makepeace KC, prosecuting, said at a previous hearing: “The motive for this attempt to kill was to remove an impediment to his inheritance.”

The disguised photo ID police found on Dr Thomas Kwan’s computer (Northumbria Police/PA) (PA Media)

Kwan, a Sunderland-based GP, refused to tell police which poison he had used as medics battled to save Mr O’Hara.

His victim had responded with stoicism to his physical suffering, the court heard, but he has since developed post-traumatic stress disorder.

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.

Major searches were carried out over a number of days by the emergency services after they found lethal chemicals in Dr Thomas Kwan’s garage (Owen Humphreys/PA) (PA Archive)

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”.