LONDON (AP) — A British doctor who was disgruntled about his inheritance and tried to kill his mother’s boyfriend by injecting him with a fake COVID-19 vaccine that was poison was sentenced Wednesday to 31 years in prison. Dr. Thomas Kwan disguised himself as a nurse making home virus booster visits to infect Patrick O’Hara with a flesh-eating poison because he believed the older man stood in the way of him inheriting his mother's home some day.
“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 last month in Newcastle Crown Court to attempted murder.
O’Hara, 72, survived after being in intensive care for several weeks and having part of his arm cut away to prevent the necrotizing fasciitis from spreading. The ordeal left him “a shell of an individual,” he said. O'Hara and Kwan's mother, Jenny Leung, have since split up.
Police used surveillance camera footage to track down Kwan. They found he had hatched an elaborate plot by sending fake letters with National Health Service logos, hyperlinks and even a QR code to offer a home visit for a COVID booster to O'Hara. Kwan disguised himself in head-to-toe protective gear, tinted glasses and a surgical mask and drove a vehicle to the appointment in January using fake license plates.
Kwan, who was described a.
