A “respected” GP planned to kill his mother’s partner using a fake COVID booster jab, a court has heard.
Thomas Kwan allegedly devised an “audacious” plan that involved disguising himself as a community nurse and poisoning Patrick O’Hara with the fake medicine.
The 53-year-old, who is a partner at a surgery in Sunderland, denies attempting to murder Mr O’Hara, then aged 71, at the home of his mother, Jenny Leung, in Newcastle city centre on 22 January.
He also denies an alternative charge of grievous bodily harm with intent.
Kwan has pleaded guilty to administering a noxious substance but the Crown’s case is that he meant to kill the pensioner.
Peter Makepeace KC, prosecuting, told Newcastle Crown Court: “Sometimes, occasionally perhaps, the truth really is stranger than fiction.
“Mr Thomas Kwan, the defendant in the case, was in January of this year a respected and experienced medical doctor in general practice with a GP’s surgery based in Sunderland.
“From November 2023 at the latest, and probably long before then, he devised an intricate plan to kill his mother’s long-term partner, a man called Patrick O’Hara.”
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Mr Makepeace described it as “an audacious plan”, adding: “It was a plan to murder a man in plain sight, to murder a man right in front of his own mother’s eyes, that man’s life partner.”
Mr Makepeace also said that the defendant would claim that his intention was to cause “no more than mild pain or discomfort”.
Mr O’Hara had been in a relationship with Ms Leung for over two decades and she had named him in her will so he could stay in her house should she die before him, jurors were told.
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But this decision strained her relationship with her son, so much so police had to be called when Kwan burst into her house uninvited in November 2022, the court heard.
A year later, Kwan, who is married with a son, faked a letter from the NHS to Mr O’Hara “with chilling authenticity”, Mr Makepeace said.
Claiming to be from a community nurse called Raj Patel, the letter offered Mr O’Hara a home visit, the jury was told.
Having stayed in a hotel under a false name, Kwan allegedly travelled to his mother’s house in a long coat, flat cap, surgical gloves, medical mask, and tinted glasses, the court heard.
Posing as a nurse, he spent 45 minutes in his mother’s house carrying out medical tests – he even checked his unsuspecting mother’s blood pressure when she asked him to – the prosecution said.
It was alleged that Kwan, in what the court heard was broken English with an Asian accent, told Mr O’Hara that he needed a COVID booster, even though he had had one three months before.
After the injection, it was said that Mr O’Hara complained of a “terrible pain” but the nurse reassured him it was not uncommon, before packing his things and leaving, the court heard.
When Ms Leung commented that the man was the same height as her son, Mr O’Hara “began to suspect something was very wrong”, jurors heard.
In pain, Mr O’Hara contacted his own GP and eventually learned that the NHS organisation that had written to him did not exist, the court was told.
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He went to A&E where staff initially thought his injuries were due to a “clumsy” COVID vaccine, Mr Makepeace said.
However, he returned the next day when his arm had blistered and was “seriously discoloured”, the court heard.
After initial confusion, doctors realised that Mr O’Hara was suffering from necrotising fasciitis, “a rare and life-threatening, flesh-eating disease” the court was told.
Over the coming days, doctors had to cut the diseased flesh from Mr O’Hara’s arm and he spent weeks in intensive care.
The trial continues.
