A former GP already serving life for attempted murder has admitted to another plot to kill his mother's partner using poisoned wine. Thomas Kwan appeared at Newcastle Crown Court to plead guilty to trying to murder Patrick O'Hara through a fake wine club scheme that preceded his Covid jab attack.
The 54-year-old contacted O'Hara via the fictitious Northern Wine and Drinks Tasting Gentlemen's Club between September 2022 and January 2024. Kwan sent between 18 and 21 bottles of wine, some laced with thallium, a highly toxic metal.
O'Hara drank some of the poisoned bottles and gifted one to Torquil Gundlach, who also consumed the toxic wine. Kwan admitted administering a noxious substance to Gundlach while intending to injure O'Hara.
Fake wine club scheme
Peter Makepeace KC, prosecuting, told the court that two recovered bottles contained poison and evidence showed a third bottle caused O'Hara to fall ill. Not all bottles were poisoned as O'Hara would have swiftly fallen ill if he had consumed only toxic wine, which would have quickly brought the scheme to a halt.
"Genuine bottles were sent to lure the victim into a sense of security," Makepeace said. The wine club Kwan created "does not exist".
Kwan, who appeared via videolink from maximum security HMP Frankland, will be sentenced on January 30.
Original Covid jab conviction
The Hong Kong-born doctor was jailed for life in November with a minimum term of 31 years for attempting to murder O'Hara with a fake Covid vaccination. Mrs Justice Lambert called it an "audacious plan to murder a man in plain sight".
Kwan sent fake NHS letters offering O'Hara a home visit from a community nurse in January 2024. He arrived in disguise at the couple's Newcastle home and administered what he claimed was a Covid vaccine but was actually iodomethane, a poison used in pesticides.
O'Hara felt a sharp pain and Kwan quickly fled. The victim underwent a horrific hospital ordeal as medics fought to save his life without knowing the poison's composition, requiring plastic surgery after developing a flesh-eating disease.
Motive and aftermath
Kwan was effectively estranged from his mother, Jenny Leung, after falling out over money. He was angry after discovering his mother had made a will allowing O'Hara to stay in her home should she die before him.
Police tracked Kwan through CCTV back to a city centre hotel and then to his Ingleby Barwick home. In his garage, officers discovered an array of dangerous chemicals and found instructions on how to make the chemical weapon ricin on his computer.
Kwan was struck off the medical register in September following a Medical Practitioners' Tribunal Service hearing. Tribunal chair Gerry Wareham said erasure was "the only outcome that would adequately mark the seriousness of the conviction, protect the public, maintain public confidence in the profession".
Sources used: "PA Media" Note: This article has been edited with the help of Artificial Intelligence.
