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

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 on Wednesday.

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”.

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.”

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.

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”.