An evil GP jailed for more than 30 years for attempting to murder his mother’s partner while disguised as a Covid nurse has admitted trying to poison the pensioner on multiple other occasions.
Thomas Kwan, 54, sent at least three bottles of alcohol laced with the poison thallium to Patrick O’Hara, 73, after convincing him to sign up to a bogus wine club he had created, Newcastle Crown Court heard today.
The ‘Northern Wine and Drinks Tasting Gentleman’s Club’ ‘didn’t exist’, the court heard, and it was in fact Kwan who had created documents convincing Mr O’Hara to sign up for deliveries.
In total, between 18 and 21 bottles were sent the address Mr O’Hara shared with Kwan’s mother in Newcastle-upon-Tyne between September 2022 and January last year, with at least three ‘laced with thallium’, a poison which eventually left Mr O’Hara in intensive care.
Another man, Torquil Gundlach, was also exposed to the poison when Mr O’Hara unwittingly gave him a bottle of the tampered wine as a present, the court heard.
Prosecuting, Peter Makepeace KC, said that not all of the wine bottles contained thallium as ‘if every single bottle delivered were laced, every single bottle would result in immediate illness and would have quickly brought the scheme to a halt.
‘Genuine bottles were sent to lure the victim into a sense of security.’
In November last year, Kwan was jailed for 31 years and five months for injecting Mr O’Hara with poison while in disguise as a community nurse offering a coronavirus booster jab.
Posing as a ‘Raj Patel’ and adopting a fake Asian accent, he arranged the visit through multiple forged letters.
Mr O’Hara was left with a flesh-eating disease and told Newcastle Crown Court he had become a ‘shell’ of himself.
The new attempts on Mr O’Hara’s life to which Kwan has admitted pre-date the ‘nurse’ attempt.
Last year, the court heard that the the GP, who worked at Happy House Surgery in Sunderland and lived in a large detached home in Ingleby Barwick, Teesside, with his wife and young son, was ‘obsessed’ with money and angry that his mother, Wai King Leung – also known as Jenny – had given Mr O’Hara a say in his inheritance.
His mother had taken £1million out of a joint bank account before she divorced Kwan’s father.
Kwan considered that he had not been fairly treated with his father’s inheritance as he did not receive the greatest share of his estate, which he felt was his right.
Newcastle Crown Court heard that even after he had been arrested, he complained from prison about the compensation which Mr O’Hara was likely to receive for the horrific injuries which he suffered as a result of being poisoned by him.
At today’s hearing, Mr Makepeace added that, with regard to the wine murder plot, there was evidence that two bottles recovered contained poison.
‘There is evidence a third bottle delivered and consumed by [Mr O’Hara] provoked an illness consistent with thallium poisoning,’ he added.
The Hong Kong-born doctor was jailed for life in November at the same court after he admitted plotting to kill Mr O’Hara in what the sentencing judge, Mrs Justice Lambert, called an ‘audacious plan to murder a man in plain sight.’
Kwan sent two fake letters with NHS logos, hyperlinks and even a QR code, offering Mr O’Hara a home visit from a community nurse which he carried out in January 2024.
Kwan turned up in disguise at the couple’s home in central Newcastle and carried out a health check before administering a fake Covid vaccine, which was in reality the poison iodomethane which is used in pesticides.
Incredibly, he even gave his own mother a blood pressure test without her realising the ‘nurse’ was her own son.
Mr O’Hara felt a sharp pain and Kwan quickly fled. The pensioner fell seriously ill and required plastic surgery.
In an emotional interview with the Daily Mail last year, Mr O’Hara said: ‘He might not have succeeded in killing me, but he took me to Hell and back. I can’t put into words how bad the pain was.
Describing the moment the ‘nurse’ turned up on his doorstep, he added: ‘He’d put on brown make-up to darken his complexion.
‘My friends and I have had a laugh about his disguise. He looks like Inspector Clouseau, doesn’t he?’
When officers captured Kwan after scouring CCTV they discovered an array of dangerous chemicals in his garage as well as instructions on how to make the poison ricin.
Mr O’Hara and Ms Leung have separated since the attempts on his life.
Kwan was struck off the medical register following a hearing of the Medical Practitioners’ Tribunal Service in September.
Appearing via video-link from HMP Frankland, Durham, Kwan said he could hear Judge Edward Bindloss as he told him he will be sentenced in January for the further offences.
