A British physician who was disgruntled about his inheritance and injected his mom’s boyfriend with poison offered as a COVID-19 vaccine was sentenced Wednesday to 31 years in jail.
Dr. Thomas Kwan disguised himself as a nurse making dwelling visits to inject Patrick O’Hara with a poison that brought about a life-threatening flesh-eating illness. Kwan believed O’Hara stood in the best way of him inheriting his mom’s dwelling sometime, officers mentioned.
“It was an audacious plan to murder a man in plain sight and you very nearly succeeded,” Justice Christina Lambert mentioned. “You were certainly obsessed by money and more particularly, the money to which you considered yourself entitled.”
Kwan, 53, pleaded responsible final month in Newcastle Crown Courtroom to tried homicide.
O’Hara, 72, survived after being in intensive take care of a number of weeks. The poison brought about and having a part of his arm reduce away to stop the flesh-eating illness, referred to as necrotizing fasciitis, from spreading.
Northumbria Police
O’Hara beforehand advised Newcastle Crown Courtroom he had change into a “shell” of himself, the BBC reported.
O’Hara and Kwan’s mom, Jenny Leung, have since cut up up.
Police used surveillance digicam footage to trace down Kwan.
They discovered he had hatched an elaborate plot by sending pretend letters with Nationwide Well being Service logos, hyperlinks and even a QR code to supply a house go to for a COVID booster to O’Hara. Kwan disguised himself in head-to-toe protecting gear, tinted glasses and a surgical masks and drove a car to the appointment in January utilizing pretend license plates.
Earlier than Kwan injected O’Hara within the arm, the physician spent 45 minutes at a hospital, talking with a damaged Asian accent and finishing up blood checks and well being surveys, the BBC reported.
Thomas Kwan is seen in disguise, on this screengrab from a CCTV footage taken on January 22, 2024.
Northumbria Police/Handout through REUTERS
Kwan, who was described as having a morbid obsession with poisons, used iodomethane, a substance present in pesticides that he thought could be tough for medics to detect, the decide mentioned.
Police discovered arsenic, liquid mercury and castor beans, which can be utilized to make the chemical weapon ricin, throughout a search of his dwelling. He had directions on easy methods to make ricin on his pc.
Kwan was upset about getting a smaller share of his inheritance when his father died. He had a strained relationship along with his mom and discovered that she had a provision in her will that may enable O’Hara to remain in her dwelling if she predeceased him.
The physician had put in spyware and adware on his mom’s pc years earlier to trace her funds, the BBC reported.
“Your resentment and bitterness towards your mother and Mr. O’Hara was all to do with money and your belief you were not being given money which you thought you were entitled to,” the decide mentioned.
O’Hara mentioned justice had been served by the sentence.
