Newcastle disguised a poison GP’s victim as a ‘shell’ of himself

A man who was poisoned by the son of his partner’s GP in an inheritance dispute has told a court he is a ‘shell’ of himself.

Thomas Kwan tried to kill Patrick O’Hara by injecting him with a pesticide under the guise of a Covid booster jab, Newcastle Crown Court heard.

Kwan, 53, disguised himself with a mask and glasses when he went to the victim’s home in Newcastle in January after sending fabricated NHS letters to arrange an appointment.

The GP initially denied attempted murder, but… changed his plea after his trial beganwith prosecutors telling him he should get a life sentence.

Kwan had been a respected GP at Happy House Surgery in Sunderland, his trial heard.

In 2021, his mother, Wai King Leung, also known as Jenny Leung, had made a will and left a share in her St Thomas Street home to her partner of 21 years, Mr O’Hara.

On January 22 this year, Kwan went to the house and posed as a community nurse and injected Mr O’Hara with a poison, believed to be a pesticide called iodomethane, which led to the 71-year-old developing the flesh-eating disease. necrotizing fasciitis in his arm.

During the sentencing hearing, which started on Thursday but will conclude at a later date, the court heard O’Hara’s relationship with Ms Leung was now “completely broken”.

During his 13-minute speech, O’Hara said he “couldn’t believe it” when police told him Kwan had tried to poison him.

He said he felt “excruciating pain” as soon as he was injected, but still “trusted” his doctor when they said it was just an allergic reaction.

Mr O’Hara spent five weeks in the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle and had to undergo multiple operations to have parts of his arm removed and several skin grafts, the court heard.

“I’ve been left as an individual,” O’Hara said, adding: “I honestly feel like I’ve been to hell and back.”

He said Kwan had “brought the NHS into disrepute” and “blatantly abused” the fact he was in the “ultimate position of trust” as a doctor.

Mr O’Hara said he was “petrified” that Kwan would ever leave prison and that his scars were an “eternal reminder” of the attack.

A psychologist concluded Mr O’Hara had “severe post-traumatic stress disorder”, caused in part by the “emotional betrayal” of the attack by someone he considered family, the court heard.

Prosecutor Peter Makepeace KC argued that Kwan should receive a life sentence, saying Kwan was “obsessed” with money and had a “sense of entitlement” to his inheritance.

The prosecutor said Kwan’s “motive for killing was to remove an impediment to his legacy” against a “backdrop of grudges and family problems.”

Mr Makepeace said Kwan already felt “rejected” after not receiving as much as he had expected in his father’s will, and that in that case he had “forged” lawyers’ letters and threatened his siblings to get what he saw as his “rightful inheritance”.

Kwan felt that Mr O’Hara, who was “completely innocent”, “did not deserve” the share of his mother’s house and that it “went to the heart of (Kwan’s) sense of entitlement”, Makepeace said .

He said Kwan was a man of ‘considerable means’ who lived in a ‘substantial’ detached house on Brading Court in Ingleby Barwick, Teesside, and recently made a £2 million offer on a house in the south of England.

“It is not a greed that comes from a lack of money,” Makepeace said, adding: “It is a greed that comes purely from greed.”

The prosecutor said Kwan’s “distorted” views were further evidenced in letters he sent to his wife, with whom he has a young child, while in custody.

In it, Kwan “deplored” the possibility of Mr O’Hara receiving any compensation, saying in one: “One old man’s compensation for three young lives ruined, where is the justice in that?”

Mr Makepace also said Kwan had spent months planning the attack, setting up fake companies to order toxic chemicals and amassing a collection of research materials, including manuals used by terrorists, to determine the best poison to use .

He said Kwan’s garage was “filled” with toxins, ingredients and equipment that could have had no other purpose than to produce poison, including ricin.

Mr Makepeace said Kwan’s obsession with money was further illustrated by a computer he gave to his mother in 2000, which was fitted with spyware so he could monitor all her online financial transactions.

“Here is a man who irrationally harbors the intention to kill a man in the worst way imaginable,” the prosecutor said, adding that Kwan “had planned it meticulously and provided himself with multiple methods to achieve that” .

In mitigation, Paul Greaney QC said it was a “serious crime with serious consequences” but said there were “mixed motives” for the “terrible plans”, and not just financial gain.

He said Kwan had a “dysfunctional relationship” with his mother and felt she had not treated him in the way he believed a son “should be entitled to.”

Kwan had expressed the view that he wanted to “get revenge” on his mother by harming her partner, and had also said that if he “removed (Mr O’Hara) from the picture” his relationship with Ms Leung “would improve,” the court heard.

Mr Greaney said Kwan would receive 45% of his mother’s “very significant” estate in 2021, of which the house was only part, and that Mr O’Hara’s murder would not have given him a huge advantage.

Mr Greaney acknowledged there was “subterfuge” and “substantial planning” but that Kwan was “always going to get caught because of the amateurish nature” of some of his plans.

Judge Mrs Justice Lambert said there was a “real hinterland of simmering resentments going back to childhood” between Kwan and his mother, with the “focus” being “money”.

She said she hopes to sentence Kwan in the next two weeks.