Dr Thomas Kwan: GP pleads guilty to attempted murder of mum's partner with fake covid jab

Katie Cole reports on Thomas Kwan's elaborate plot to kill his mother's partner.

A GP has admitted trying to kill his mother’s partner by injecting him with poison while posing as a community NHS nurse delivering a covid booster.

Dr Thomas Kwan, 53, was on trial at Newcastle Crown Court and had initially denied attempted murder, but changed his plea after he heard the prosecution open the case against him.

Police initially thought the married father-of-one used the chemical weapon ricin to try to kill Patrick O’Hara, 72, at his mother’s home in St Thomas Street, Newcastle, on 22 January, but an expert believed a pesticide was more likely.

Kwan sparked a major emergency services operation when police found lethal chemicals stored in the detached garage at his home in Brading Court, Ingleby Barwick, Teesside.

A partner at the Happy House Surgery, in Sunderland, the GP had already pleaded guilty to administering a noxious substance, claiming he meant to cause no more than mild pain.

The Crown’s case was that he meant to kill his mother’s partner of more than 20 years, who developed a rare flesh-eating disease as a result of the jab in his arm.

The Hong Kong-born doctor had developed an “encyclopaedic knowledge” of poisons, the court heard, and he studied how to get away with murder, police discovered from analysis of his home computers.

CCTV footage released by Northumbria Police shows Dr Thomas Kwan arriving in Newcastle before putting on a "disguise" and heading to his victim's home

Opening the case on Thursday, Peter Makepeace KC, prosecuting, said: “Mr Thomas Kwan, the defendant in the case, was in January of this year a respected and experienced medical doctor in general practice with a GP’s surgery based in Sunderland.

“From November 2023 at the latest, and probably long before then, he devised an intricate plan to kill his mother’s long-term partner, a man called Patrick O’Hara.

“On any view, that man had done absolutely nothing to offend Mr Kwan in any way whatsoever.

“He was, however, a potential impediment to Mr Kwan inheriting his mother’s estate upon her death.

“Mr Kwan used his encyclopaedic knowledge of, and research into, poisons to carry out his plan.

“That plan was to disguise himself as a community nurse, attend Mr O’Hara’s address, the home he shared with the defendant’s mother, and inject him with a dangerous poison under the pretext of administering a Covid booster injection.”

Kwan forged NHS documentation to set up the home visit, disguised himself, used false number plates for the journey to Newcastle and booked in to a city centre hotel using a false name.

Kwan’s mother, Jenny Leung, named Mr O’Hara in her will to the effect that he could stay in her house should she die before her partner.

That decision led to her having a strained relationship with her son, so much so that the police were called when Kwan burst into her home uninvited in November 2022.

Kwan was “money-obsessed”, jurors heard, even installing spyware on his mother’s laptop so he could secretly monitor her finances.

Last November, Kwan wrote to Mr O’Hara claiming to be a community nurse called Raj Patel and offered him a home visit.

Mr Makepeace said: “As, I suspect, would any of us, Mr O’Hara fell for it hook, line and sinker, he had not the slightest suspicion that this was anything other than a genuine NHS community care initiative which he warmly welcomed and was grateful for.”

Kwan went to his mother’s house in a long coat, hat, surgical gloves and wearing a medical mask and tinted glasses, where he carried out a 45-minute examination on Mr O’Hara.

During the visit he took blood samples from Mr O'Hara and even checked his blood pressure and the blood pressure of his unsuspecting mother at her request.

Kwan, in what the court heard was broken English with an Asian accent, told Mr O’Hara he needed a Covid booster, even though he had only had one three months ago.

Mr O’Hara shouted in pain when it was administered and Kwan quickly packed his equipment and left, reassuring his victim that a reaction was not uncommon.

The pain continued and Mr O’Hara began to suspect something had gone badly wrong.

The next day his arm had blistered and was seriously discoloured and medics at hospital were baffled.

He had developed the flesh-eating disease necrotising fasciitis and needed to have part of his arm cut away to stop it spreading, and spent several weeks in intensive care.

The fake nurse’s movements were traced using CCTV and police were able to identify Kwan as a suspect. He was arrested a fortnight after the attack.

Searches of his home in the executive estate where he lived revealed an array of chemicals such as arsenic and liquid mercury as well as castor beans which can be used to make the chemical weapon ricin.

Police found a recipe for ricin on his computer but Ministry of Defence poisons expert Professor Steven Emmett, although still not sure which poison was used, thought iodomethane which is commonly used in pesticides, was more likely.

Mrs Justice Lambert told the court on Monday she will sentence Kwan once the issue of his dangerousness has been considered by the Probation Service.

He will be sentenced on Thursday next week.

The prosecution said their position remained that the case was financially motivated.

Mrs Justice Lambert warned Kwan: “There will be a substantial custodial term.”

Paul Greaney KC, defending, replied: “The defendant entirely understands that is inevitable.”

'One of the most elaborate criminal plots in recent memory'

Christopher Atkinson, Head of the Complex Casework Unit for CPS North East, said: “Thomas Kwan went to highly unusual lengths in his attempts to kill his mother’s partner while avoiding detection.

"Over several months, he obsessively planned a way of gaining access to his victim, which involved the use of counterfeit documents, a shell company and elaborate disguises to obscure the potentially lethal role he was to play in these events.

“While the attempt on his victim’s life was thankfully unsuccessful, the effects were still catastrophic.

"The chemical injected caused increasingly severe damage, beginning with burns and blisters around the injection site and progressing into a potentially life-threatening flesh-eating disease."

He continued: “At a time when Kwan could have assisted medical staff by identifying this substance, he instead made no comment to the questions put to him in police interview, allowing the victim’s health to further deteriorate.

“We would like to praise the work of our partners in Northumbria and Cleveland Police forces, who conducted an outstanding investigation into what has been one of the most elaborate criminal plots in recent memory.

"The key evidence they have provided has been instrumental in helping the Crown Prosecution Service build a robust case against Kwan.

“It is testament to both the strength of this case and the overwhelming evidence against him that Kwan has pleaded guilty to the charge of attempted murder today.

“Our thoughts remain with his victim at what remains a difficult time, and we sincerely hope that the conviction of his attacker today can provide him with some measure of comfort.”

A patient at the disgraced GP's surgery, Nicola Dugdale, told ITV Tyne Tees she was shocked after learning of the case.

She said: "I cant believe anyone would do that to a family member. I think he’s broken every code there is. He's broke every law that there is for doctors.."

Another patient described his actions as "absolutely terrifying".

Looking at an image of him in "disguise", they said: "Wow that doesn't look like him at all. It's only by the eyes that I recognise him, the rest of him doesn't look like him at all."

Meanwhile neighbours of the doctor spoke of their surprise after seeing the police response earlier this year.

Prashant Mallya, whose house overlooks Kwan's, told ITV Tyne Tees said the area became "swamped with just emergency services", adding: "The worst part is you know something is happening, something big, something different, something scary.

"You know it's not one of those routine things that you hear."

Mr Mallya added that the case was a little too close to home.

He said: "You read news in other places and you go 'oh my god' and to have this 'oh my god' moment in your own neighbourhood with your neighbour, you just feel a little uncomfortable."

A spokesperson for the Happy House practice said: "Dr Kwan left the practice following his arrest. Once Dr Kwan was arrested, we carried out an audit of our practice records.

"We are satisfied that this was an unrelated, personal matter and at no point did Dr Kwan pose a threat to any of our patients at Happy House."

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