“Sometimes the truth really is stranger than fiction,” said the prosecuting barrister, Peter Makepeace KC, as he outlined a case which reads like the plot of an airport thriller. Think of an Agatha Christie-inspired Columbo episode with a splash of Breaking Bad.
The story of the outwardly respectable GP Thomas Kwan and his plot to kill a man he greedily saw as standing in the way of his inheritance is a wild one.
It involved Kwan disguising himself as a nurse to administer a fake Covid booster jab. In the syringe was, an expert from the secretive weapons lab Porton Down believes, a chemical which had never been recorded as being used on humans. It was the ideal substance “a knowledgable poisoner” would use to avoid detection and frustrate treatment, Newcastle crown court heard.
The poison caused burns and blisters on the victim’s arm, later diagnosed as a deadly flesh-eating disease called necrotising fasciitis. It came from a suburban garage which was stacked with an array of hazardous chemicals including liquid mercury, thallium, arsenic and sulphuric acid.
Alarmingly, the recipe and ingredients for ricin – a scheduled chemical weapon – were also found.
All this from a reserved 53-year-old GP who worked in Sunderland and lived quietly with his wife and young son on the fringes of an estate of executive houses in Ingleby Barwick, Teesside.
Kwan’s mother, Jenny Leung, lived 50 miles north in Newcastle city centre with her partner of 20 years, Patrick O’Hara. The relationship between mother and son had been strained for years, the tension caused by, the court heard, Kwan’s “sense of entitlement” to an inheritance.
In 2021 Leung made a will which stipulated that should she die before her partner, there could be no sale of the house without O’Hara’s permission. It infuriated Kwan and his relationship with his mother deteriorated further. At one point he forced his way into her house and was so angry police were called.
No charges were brought but it clearly inflamed the bitterness Kwan already felt. Using his medical knowledge he began dreaming up his elaborate plot to kill his mother’s partner.
Kwan’s plan was to trick O’Hara into thinking he was entitled to a home visit for a Covid booster jab. He drafted a letter on NHS-headed paper which purported to be from “Mr Raj Patel (RGN) of the Community Associated Nursing Team” which convincingly outlined the home-visit scheme.
A second letter two months later even had a QR code linked to an online questionnaire. It suggested a time of between 9am and 1pm on 22 January. Not surprisingly, O’Hara fell for it and Kwan booked a Premier Inn under a false name for the morning of the jab.
He travelled there in the family Toyota Yaris, fitted with false number plates. After 20 minutes at breakfast, Kwan put on a mask, tinted spectacles, hat and long coat. He may have gone further, as a photograph recovered from his computer shows Kwan in wig, false beard and moustache.
O’Hara answered the door of the house and let the “nurse” in, shouting up to Kwan’s mother that the man from the NHS had arrived. The “nurse” took O’Hara’s blood pressure as well as blood and urine samples.
Incredibly, Kwan’s mother came down and asked for a blood pressure test too as she had come off tablets because of a rash. She had no inkling it was her son doing the test and telling her the reading was high.
When the “nurse” injected the “booster jab”, O’Hara felt terrible pain and jumped back shouting: “Bloody hell!” The nurse, in an “Asian, broken English” accent, reassured him the pain was not uncommon.
As the “nurse” went to leave, Kwan’s mother remarked that he was the same height as her son. For the first time O’Hara felt something was not right and looked out on to the street.
But Kwan was gone. On the return to his Premier Inn, he popped into a branch of Greggs.
Alarmed by the pain, O’Hara went to the nearby A&E department at Newcastle’s RVI hospital. Medics assumed it really was a botched Covid jab and gave him antibiotics and painkillers.
The next day his arm was blistering and he returned to hospital where the flesh-eating disease was diagnosed. Surgeons battled to stem its spread by cutting away the diseased flesh.
O’Hara survived and Kwan was arrested two weeks later. He refused to answer questions in relation to the attempted murder, although he did warn police that they should exercise caution in his garage.
As well as the garage being stacked with hazardous chemicals there was also a huge amount of damning material found on Kwan’s computer hard drive.
This included Acpo (Association of Chief Police Officers) guidance on murder investigations; how to make ricin from castor beans; a copy of The Terrorist’s Handbook; a recipe for sodium cyanide; a book titled 10 Poisons Used to Kill People; and far more.
Police also found that Kwan had installed spyware on a computer at his mother’s house which could monitor emails and internet searches, and film the couple as they used it.
Before his trial, Kwan admitted only administering a noxious substance, claiming his intention was to cause no more than mild irritation.
After sitting through the prosecution opening of his trial, he came to a decision. The evidence was overwhelming. He pleaded guilty to attempted murder and was warned he faced a substantial jail term.
