Thomas Kwan jailed for 31 years after trying to murder mother’s partner with fake COVID jab

A family doctor who tried to murder his mother’s partner with a fake COVID jab to get his hands on an inheritance he believed had been stolen from him has been jailed for more than 31 years.

Dr Thomas Kwan, 53, hatched an “audacious” plot to inject a poison that almost killed Patrick O’Hara, 72.

Kwan believed his mother, Jenny Leung, had stolen £1 million from her late husband before their divorce and cheated him out of his rightful inheritance as the eldest child on his wealthy father’s death.

A judge yesterday said there was “no doubt” Kwan had tried to kill Mr O’Hara for financial gain, as he was a ‘potential impediment’ to his inheritance.

Mr O’Hara had the legal right to live in Ms Leung’s flat in Newcastle after her death — thereby preventing it from being sold to the benefit of her children.

He broke down as he left the court before thanking doctors and nurses who treated him at Newcastle’s Royal Victoria Infirmary. Asked about the sentence, he replied: ‘I believe that justice has been done.’

Kwan, a married father-of-one, was a man of considerable means, with earnings of £140,000 a year and he had put in an offer on a house for £2 million. Yet the court heard he was willing to murder to bolster his bank account further.

Mrs Justice Lambert said his relationship with his mother was ‘strained and difficult’ for many years. It ‘worsened when your mother divorced your father 27 years ago,’ she said.

She told Newcastle Crown Court: ‘Your mother had, you said, withdrawn £1million from the joint account which she held with your father and had then forced him to divorce her.

“In Chinese culture you said that it was usual for the eldest child to receive the largest proportion of the financial proceeds of a parent’s will. However, when your father died your younger brother received the largest proportion. You considered this to be unfair.”

Kwan, originally from Hong Kong, wrote a letter to his mother a year before the poisoning attempt in which he referred to her “having stolen money from your father and family and told her you had never given up your rights to your inheritance”, the judge said.

Kwan pleaded guilty to attempted murder after hearing the prosecution case against him. He was jailed for 31 years and five months and the judge imposed a restraining order to prevent him contacting Mr O’Hara, who is still battling the aftermath of the attack that left him fighting for life with the flesh-eating bug necrotising fasciitis, which caused him to have part of the flesh from his arms removed.

In his victim impact statement Mr O’Hara, who is no longer with Kwan’s mother, said he had been left ‘a shell of an individual’ by the ordeal.

The court heard Kwan had an encyclopaedic knowledge of poisons, researched making the deadly chemical ricin before opting to inject his victim with a little-known pesticide that was difficult to treat.

It was two years in the planning and he went to great lengths to forge NHS documents and convince Mr O’Hara he was having a routine COVID booster at home.

Kwan disguised himself with a hat, mask and coat and even took his mother’s blood pressure without her realising who he was.

However, days later when hospital doctors realised Mr O’Hara had been poisoned, police traced the ‘nurse’ back to Kwan’s home.

The judge, who said Kwan had a “morbid obsession” with toxic chemicals, told him: “No doubt you tried to kill Mr O’Hara for financial gain.

“It was an audacious plan to murder a man in plain sight and you very nearly succeeded.

“Very nearly succeeded.”

© Daily Mail