A 'money obsessed' GP who poisoned his mother's partner while disguised as a nurse administering a fake Covid booster jab has been jailed for 31 years and five months. Thomas Kwan, 53, changed his plea to guilty after one day of evidence at Newcastle Crown Court.
The court heard Kwan was motivated by 'a sense of entitlement' to his mother's estate and saw Patrick O'Hara, 72, as a 'potential impediment' to his inheritance. Despite being a man of considerable means, prosecutor Peter Makepeace KC said it was 'greed bred, purely and simply, of greed'.
Kwan forged NHS documentation, used false number plates, and booked a hotel under a bogus name to carry out the attack. The poison, believed to be iodomethane, caused O'Hara to develop necrotising fasciitis, a life-threatening flesh-eating disease. He survived after multiple surgeries to remove large portions of flesh from his arms.
In his victim impact statement, O'Hara said he was now a 'shell of an individual' suffering extreme PTSD and fatigue. He described the injection as 'instant, excruciating pain' and said he feared Kwan being released. The judge described it as 'an audacious plan to murder a man in plain sight'.
