A GP has admitted attempting to kill his mother’s long-term partner in a case before a UK court which has been described as “stranger than fiction.”
Thomas Kwan went on trial accused of disguising himself as a community nurse to poison Patrick O’Hara, 72, with a fake Covid booster jab in January of this year.
The Sunderland doctor has been convicted of attempting to kill Mr O’Hara after he injected him with a flesh-eating disease during a false Covid vaccine appointment.
The doctor admitted attempting to kill O’Hara with an as-yet unconfirmed toxin, in what has been deemed one of the most “elaborate plots in recent criminal history.”
On Monday, the 48-year-old medic changed his plea to guilty after listening to the prosecution’s case against him at a hearing at Newcastle Crown Court.
The court heard how Kwan had gone to “highly unusual lengths” in an effort to avoid detection, with the doctor accused of using his “encyclopaedic knowledge of poisons” in an attempt to kill his mother’s romantic partner.
Christopher Atkinson, chief of complex casework at the Crown Prosecution Service North East, praised Northumbria and Cleveland Police for “conducting an outstanding investigation into what has been one of the most elaborate criminal plots in recent memory.”
“Over several months, [Kwan] 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,” Mr Atkinson said.
“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.”
Mr Atkinson further said that Kwan had refused to help medics identify the substance he had injected O’Hara with, and declined to give comment during interviews after he was arrested by police.
Last week, the court heard how Kwan had worn a disguise so convincing that he went unrecognised even by his own mother.
The attempted murder trial heard how Kwan believed that O’Hara was a “potential impediment to Kwan inheriting his mother’s estate” when she passed away, and that he was “money obsessed.”
This, the prosecution said, was evidenced by the fact he had installed spyware on his mother’s laptop in order to secretly keep an eye on her finances.
Jurors heard how from last November “at the latest” Kwan had started to devise “an intricate plan” to kill his mother’s partner.
In a bid to gain access to Mr O’Hara, Kwan, in November last year, forged a letter to the 72-year-old purporting to be a community nurse offering him a home visit in the house he shared with Kwan’s mother in Newcastle.
An initial forged NHS-headed letter was sent to his victim, claiming that his age qualified him for a nursing visit, followed by a second letter, stating that a vaccine appointment with a member of a home nursing team had been made for him. The home nursing team was itself a work of fiction, police said, created by Kwan to facilitate his scheme.
After conducting a medical questionnaire with his victim and taking the man’s blood pressure, Kwan then injected his arm with an unknown substance. When the man complained of pain in his arm, Kwan provided reassurances before gathering his things and hurriedly leaving the scene.
The court heard that Mr O’Hara “fell for it hook, line and sinker” and “had not the slightest suspicion” that the letter was anything other than a genuine care initiative by the NHS which he “warmly welcomed and was grateful for.”
Kwan showed up to his mother’s house for the visit wearing a long coat, surgical gloves and a flat cap, as well as tinted glasses and a face mask. He was dressed head-to-toe in protective clothing, police said. He undertook an examination of O’Hara lasting 45 minutes, and even checked his mother’s blood pressure when she asked.
It was during this visit that Khan informed Mr O’Hara he would need to get a Covid booster, despite O’Hara having had a booster only three once prior.
Mr O’Hara cried out in pain when he received the jab, prompting Khan to pack up his equipment and leave. He assured O’Hara that the reaction he had was not uncommon.
“After conducting a medical questionnaire with his victim and taking the man’s blood pressure, Kwan then injected his arm with an unknown substance. When the man complained of pain in his arm, Kwan provided reassurances before gathering his things and hurriedly leaving the scene,” Northumbria police said.
However, the pain did not subside, prompting Mr O’Hara to worry that something was seriously wrong. The day after the visit, his arm was badly discoloured and blistered, confounding medics at the hospital.
It emerged that he was suffering from necrotising fasciitis, a flesh-eating disease requiring him to have part of his arm cut off to stop it spreading. He spent several weeks in intensive care.
CCTV clues helped police to identify Khan as a suspect, after his movements were traced and chemicals including arsenic and liquid mercury were found at his home. Forensic searches further revealed an array of books and online guides linking him to the attempted murder, including The Mujahideen Poisons Handbook, and Toxicology – The Basic Science of Poisons.
A recipe for ricin – a poison found in castor beans – on Khan’s computer as well as a separate document addressed to “Patrick” which the prosecution said hinted at ““yet another method of delivery explored by Mr Kwan.”
Kwan will be sentenced next Thursday, with the judge warning the struck-off doctor that a “substantial custodial term” would be imposed.
Mr Atkinson, in a statement published by Northumbria Police on Monday, added: “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.
“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.”