A GP donned a disguise to trick his way into his own mother’s house to poison his step-dad while pretending to give him a Covid job, a court heard.
Dr Thomas Kwan, 53 posed as a community nurse as part of an elaborate plan to murder Patrick O’Hara so he could inherit mum Jenny’s estate, it was said.
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It was so successful that even she was fooled by his surgical mask, hat and dark glasses, the jury was told.
Moments after he had been given the injection, Mr O’Hara, 72, fell ill as the deadly flesh-eating disease Necrotising Fasciitis began to overtake his body.
Kwan fled in his Toyota Yaris car fitted with false number plates in a bid to evade police cameras, Newcastle crown court heard.
He was arrested two weeks later and cops uncovered the full extent of his alleged murder plot which included inventing a fictitious NHS department and doctor to trick Mr O’Hara into having the supposed Covid vaccine.
Prosecutor Mr Peter Makepeace KC told jurors: “Sometimes the truth really is stranger than fiction.
“The case you are about to try, on any view, is an extraordinary case.
“Thomas Kwan, the defendant was in January of this year a respected and experienced medical doctor in general practice.
“From November 2023 at the latest, and probably long before then, he devised an intricate plan to kill his mother’s long-term partner, Patrick O’Hara.
“That man had done absolutely nothing to offend Mr Kwan. He was, however, a potential impediment to Mr Kwan inheriting his mother’s estate upon her death.
“Mr Kwan used his encyclopaedic knowledge of poisons to carry out his plan to disguise himself as a community nurse, attend Mr O’Hara’s address, the home he shared with the defendant’s mother, and inject him with a dangerous poison under the pretext of administering a Covid booster injection.
“It was a very carefully planned scheme. It involved Mr Kwan forging NHS documentation to lure Mr O’Hara into his plan; personal disguise to shield his identity from his victim and his mother.
“It involved him falsifying the number plates on his car and using false details to book into a hotel.
“It was an audacious plan, 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 O’Hara and Kwan’s mother Jenny Leung, 73, were in a stable relationship of more than 20 years and lived in a house in Newcastle city centre owned by Ms Leung.
Kwan has admitted administering a noxious substance to Mr O’Hara – who survived – but denied attempting to murder or inflict grievous bodily harm with intent on January 22 this year, claiming he only meant to cause him “mild discomfort”.
The case continues.