A British doctor who was dissatisfied with his inheritance and injected his mother’s boyfriend with poison disguised as a COVID-19 vaccine was sentenced Wednesday to 31 years in prison.
Dr. Thomas Kwan posed as a nurse during house visits to inject Patrick O’Hara with a poison that produced a life-threatening flesh-eating sickness. According to officials, Kwan believed O’Hara was preventing him from inheriting his mother’s home eventually.
“It was an audacious plan to murder a man in plain sight, and you very nearly succeeded,” Justice Christina Lambert said. “You were certainly obsessed by money and more particularly, the money to which you considered yourself entitled.”
Kwan, 53, pleaded guilty to attempted murder last month at Newcastle Crown Court.
O’Hara, 72, survived after being in intensive care for several weeks. The poison prompted him to have a portion of his arm amputated to prevent the flesh-eating illness, necrotizing fasciitis, from spreading.
According to the BBC, O’Hara previously admitted before Newcastle Crown Court that he had become a “shell” of himself.
O’Hara and Kwan’s mother, Jenny Leung, have since separated.
Police used surveillance camera footage to locate Kwan.
They discovered that he had devised a complex plan to offer O’Hara a home visit for a COVID booster via bogus letters with National Health Service logos, hyperlinks, and even a QR code. Kwan dressed himself in head-to-toe protective gear, tinted glasses, and a medical mask before driving a vehicle to the appointment in January with bogus license plates.
Before injecting O’Hara in the arm, Kwan visited a hospital for 45 minutes, speaking with a broken Asian accent and conducting blood tests and health assessments, according to the BBC.
Kwan, who was described as having a pathological preoccupation with poisons, employed iodomethane, a pesticide ingredient that he believed would be difficult for physicians to identify, according to the judge.
During a check of his residence, police discovered arsenic, liquid mercury, and castor beans, all of which could be used to manufacture the chemical weapon ricin. He had instructions for making ricin on his computer.
Kwan was disappointed because he received a smaller amount of his fortune when his father died. He had a bad relationship with his mother, and he discovered that she had a provision in her will that allowed O’Hara to remain in her home if she died before him.
Years ago, the doctor installed malware on his mother’s computer to follow her finances, according to the BBC.
“Your resentment and bitterness towards your mother and Mr. O’Hara was all to do with money and your belief you were not being given money which you thought you were entitled to,” the tribunal’s ruling stated.
According to O’Hara, the sentencing was just.