'MURDER' PLOT
Moment GP ‘dons fake beard & wig to pose as Covid jab nurse in bid to kill mum’s partner by injecting him with poison’
The alleged murder plot included inventing a fictitious NHS department and doctor
THIS is the moment a GP allegedly donned a Covid nurse disguise in a bid to kill his stepdad by injecting him with poison.
Dr Thomas Kwan, 53 posed as a community nurse as part of an elaborate plan to murder Patrick O’Hara so he could inherit mum Jenny’s estate, it was said.
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It was so successful that even she was fooled by his surgical mask, hat and dark glasses, the jury was told.
Moments after he had been given the injection, Mr O’Hara, 72, fell ill as the deadly flesh-eating disease Necrotising Fasciitis began to overtake his body.
On January 22 this year, Kwan left his home in Ingleby Barwick, Teesside, in his Toyota Yaris fitted with false plates and booked into a Premier Inn in Newcastle under a false name, the trial heard.
Footage played to the court showed him a few hours later leaving the hotel in a disguise including a long coat, surgical gloves and a face mask.
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The court was told he travelled to Patrick's home and said he was from the NHS using a "broken English accent".
Kwan's mum was "oblivious" to the fact the so-called nurse was allegedly her son.
The GP told Patrick he was going to give him a Covid booster injection, jurors heard.
Mr Makepeace added: "Immediately Mr O’Hara felt a terrible pain and jumped back. He shouted, ‘bloody Hell’ and explained the immediate and intense pain, but the nurse reassured him.
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“From that point forward, the nurse began to noticeably speed up his departure, packing up his equipment and leaving the premises in something of a rush.
“As he left the home, Ms. Leung came downstairs again and commented that the nurse had been the same height as her son.
“Upon that comment, and for the first time, Mr O’Hara began to suspect something was very wrong. He went out into the street to see if he could catch the nurse up and get some reassurance.
“He was too late out into the street and could find no trace of the nurse. He returned home to find the pain in his arm increasing.”
Kwan fled in his Toyota Yaris car fitted with false number plates in a bid to evade police cameras, Newcastle crown court heard.
He was arrested two weeks later and cops uncovered the full extent of his alleged murder plot which included inventing a fictitious NHS department and doctor to trick Mr O’Hara into having the supposed Covid vaccine.
Prosecutor Mr Peter Makepeace KC told jurors: “Sometimes the truth really is stranger than fiction.
“The case you are about to try, on any view, is an extraordinary case.
"Thomas Kwan, the defendant was in January of this year a respected and experienced medical doctor in general practice.
“From November 2023 at the latest, and probably long before then, he devised an intricate plan to kill his mother’s long-term partner, Patrick O’Hara.
“That man had done absolutely nothing to offend Mr Kwan. He was, however, a potential impediment to Mr Kwan inheriting his mother’s estate upon her death.
“Mr Kwan used his encyclopaedic knowledge of poisons to carry out his plan 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.
“It was a very carefully planned scheme. It involved Mr Kwan forging NHS documentation to lure Mr O’Hara into his plan; personal disguise to shield his identity from his victim and his mother.
"It involved him falsifying the number plates on his car and using false details to book into a hotel.
“It was an audacious plan, it was a plan to murder a man in plain sight, to murder a man right in front of his own mother's eyes, that man’s life partner.”
Mr O’Hara and Kwan’s mother Jenny Leung, 73, were in a stable relationship for more than 20 years and lived in a house in Newcastle city centre owned by Ms Leung.
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Kwan has admitted administering a noxious substance to Mr O’Hara – who survived - but denied attempting to murder or inflict grievous bodily harm with intent on January 22 this year, claiming he only meant to cause him “mild discomfort”.
The case continues.
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