A respected GP who tried to kill his mother's partner with a fake Covid jab laced with poison has been jailed for more than 30 years.

Dr Thomas Kwan tried to kill Patrick O'Hara, now 72, after experimenting with a series of noxious substances, including castor beans to make ricin, in his garage following a row over his mother Jenny's will. Kwan, 53, dramatically changed his plea to guilty mid-way through a trial at Newcastle Crown Court earlier this month.

During the trial the court was told that following the attack on January 22 this year, Mr O'Hara had contacted his GP and the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle to ask about the jab. The site of the injection became inflamed despite him being sent home with antibiotics. But his condition grew worse. He was rushed to hospital and diagnosed with necrotising fasciitis, a life-threatening flesh-eating disease, and had to be treated in intensive care.

Today Kwan was sentenced to 31 years and five months behind bars and told he is a "dangerous" offender who resorted to "extreme" behaviour for his own needs.

Mrs Justice Lambert told Kwan: "Your intention of visiting the home was to administer a lethal injection of poison to Mr O'Hara on the pretence of administering a Covid booster. It was an audacious plan to murder a man in plain sight and you very nearly succeeded in your objection.

"You were in the home of Mr O'Hara for 40 minutes and for some part of that your mother was also present and you took her . Extraordinary though it seems, so trusting were they that neither recognised you under your disguise."

Justice Lambert said financial gain was the motive behind the attempted killing and added: "You were certainly obsessed by money and more particularly by money which you considered yourself to be entitled.

"I have no doubt that the reason why you tried to kill Mr O'Hara was for financial gain.

"You knew your mother had left the house to her children but you also knew she had changed her will to give Mr O'Hara a life interest in the house.

"By killing him you removed the obstacle which lay between you and your recovery of your share of the property following your mother's death."

During the trial, the jury was shown the opening shot of a video of Mr O'Hara in the ICU unit of the Royal Victoria Infirmary, close to the home which he shared Jenny, 73, in which he gave an account of the poisoning. The full interview could not be played in court due to a technical issue. But there was a noticeable change in the demeanour of Kwan when he returned to court afterwards, as he sat with his head bowed before the jury was sent home.

The video interview was due to be played in full to the jury the next day, but Kwan opted to plead guilty.

The court had heard Kwan became "obsessed" with ricin, arsenic, cyanide, and nerve agents. He had "10 poisons used to kill people" among guides found after the attack. The jury was told he had "pestered" his mother over her financial affairs after she changed her will to allow Mr O'Hara to live at the home they shared if she were to die first.

The court heard how his mother had taken £1m 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.

The judge Mrs Lambert said: "Your mother had withdrawn £1m from a joint account just before she divorced your father. In Chinese culture, you believed you should receive a bigger proportion of your father's will. But your younger brother received the biggest proportion and you considered that to be unfair."

Dad-of-one Kwan, of Ingleby Barwick, Teesside, had originally denied attempted murder and grievous bodily harm. He had admitted administering a noxious substance but denied intending to cause serious harm.

Peter Makepeace KC, prosecuting, had earlier told the court that on January 22 this year, Kwan donned a disguise to inject Mr O’Hara, then 71, and his mum Jenny Leung's partner of 20 years, with an unidentifiable poison at their home. He bought a variety of dangerous chemicals, covering his tracks by using the Happy House surgery in Sunderland where he worked as GP and a fake research firm Azxon UK Ltd.

He told how Kwan sent Mr O'Hara two bogus letters from a "community nurse" called Raj Patel, one of Kwan's former colleagues, and even produced a fake ID in a wig, moustache, specs and goatee beard. Mr Makepeace said: "Very considerable portions of Mr O'Hara's arm flesh had to be removed in repeated procedures."

Five days after the attack, Mr O'Hara received another NHS-style letter detailing the results of his blood tests before the jab was given, the jury heard. A package meant for Mr O'Hara was then intercepted by police containing over-the-counter iron supplements which the prosecution say had been sent by the defendant. Detectives also interviewed him just days after the attack.

The jury was shown CCTV of Kwan arriving at the Premier Inn, near his mum's home in Newcastle, before dressing in surgical mask, gloves, hat and dark tinted spectacles to administer the noxious substance to Mr O'Hara. It was believed to be iodomethane, a pesticide, which had never been administered to a human before, the court heard.

Mr O'Hara only became suspicious when Jenny remarked that the nurse was "about the same height" as her son. Opening the case, Mr Makepeace KC told the jury: "Sometimes, occasionally perhaps, the truth really is stranger than fiction," he said. "The case you are about to try, on any view, is an extraordinary case.

"Mr Thomas Kwan, the defendant, 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.

"On any view that man had done absolutely nothing to offend Mr Kwan in any way whatsoever. He was however a potential impediment to Mr Kwan inheriting his mother’s estate upon her death. Mr Kwan used his encyclopedic knowledge of, and research into, poisons to carry out his plan."

He added: "That plan was 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; falsification of number plates on his car to try to evade detection; and using false details to book into a local hotel to use as the base for his operation.

"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, that man’s life partner."

Mr O'Hara, who said the attack should have been the "end of me", said he spent five weeks in hospital, faces ongoing treatment and has been to "hell and back".

The former environmental analyst said he has always been healthy and when he received a letter he thought was from the NHS about a home visit to administer the jab he did not suspect anything untoward.

But he added his life "completely changed forever" when the needle went in: ""The doctors at the RVI informed me that I had had been diagnosed with necrotising fasciitis and that my body was suffering from a 'flesh eating' disease.

"In order to cure this disease, I underwent three separate operations, which required surgeons to cut away large parts of my left arm to ensure that all the signs of the disease had been removed so that it wouldn't continue to spread."

He added: "There was never a day that went past when I did not feel pain."

Mr O'Hara, who said he "didn't want to believe it" when he found out the truth of what had happened, said his health has continued to suffer

He added: "I will never get over the anxiety and pain that he has caused me and my family."

Kwan refused to assist police when his stepdad, a retired environmental analyst, went into intensive care with rare bacterial bug Necrotitis Fasciitis, a flesh eating bug, caused by his injection.

Officers found a host of poisons and noxious substances at Kwan's address, including the ingredients for the chemical weapon ricin. But he would not tell them which one he had used.

They discovered he had set up his own firm, pretending to be a research chemist, in order to source the poisons, or the chemicals used to produce them.

In the end, the poison in the fake jab was identified as the fumigant pesticide iodomethane, never seen before in a human, by a MoD expert.

It left horrific injuries, with the prosecution producing a series of images of the damage to Mr O'Hara's arm, neck, chest and back.

The impact of the poison was so severe that surgeons had to cut away the skin on his left bicep and shoulder, exposing the muscle, to save his life.

Cops carried out further searches at the home Kwan shared with his wife and son last month, after the Hong Kong-born family doctor changed his plea to guilty at Newcastle crown court.

Mr O'Hara has split from Kwan's mum as a result of the terrible impact of her son's actions. His stepdad thought he was going to lose 'not only his left arm, but his life'.

As he left the court, Kwan's victim Patrick O'Hara said: "Justice has been done. I want to thank the police, and all the medical professionals who treated me."