GP Thomas Kwan who tried to kill man with poison struck off | UK News

A disguise-wearing GP who tried to kill his mother’s partner with poison in a row over an inheritance has been banned from working as a doctor.

Thomas Kwan, 54, was masquerading as a community nurse giving a Covid-19 booster jab when he injected Patrick O’Hara with a toxin in Newcastle in January 2024, the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service heard.

Having deemed Kwan unfit to practice medicine, the tribunal said he would undergo “erasure” from the medical register with immediate effect.

Kwan, who lived in Ingleby Barwick, Stockton-on-Tees, and worked in Sunderland, was jailed for 31 years and five months after admitting attempted murder.

The tribunal was held online with Kwan attending via telephone from HMP Frankland in County Durham.

The General Medical Council (GMC) had earlier argued he should be found to be unfit to practice, while Kwan claimed his actions were unrelated to his work as a doctor and he had had an “unblemished” career.

The panel said Kwan’s actions “breached a fundamental tenet of the profession”, which is that doctors “should act with integrity and within the law”.

It also said he had shown an “absence of remorse” and had brought the profession into disrepute.

Alex Mullen, counsel for the GMC, said the public would have been “confused, shocked and dismayed” if Kwan had not been struck off, and it would also have “damaged” the confidence in and of other medical professionals.

Kwan had sent his victim fake NHS letters to set up an appointment at Mr O’Hara’s home on 22 January, which the doctor attended in disguise using a fake accent, the tribunal heard.

The day before the appointment, Kwan had booked into a hotel in Newcastle using false details, having driven to the city with fake number plates attached to his car, the panel heard.

After giving the victim a medical examination under the guise of a community nurse carrying out health checks, Kwan injected Mr O’Hara with a pesticide – iodomethane – which caused immediate pain that Kwan dismissed as an allergic reaction, the panel had been told.

Mr O’Hara spent five days being treated in intensive care and had to have sections of dead flesh removed from his arm followed by reconstructive surgery after contracting necrotising fasciitis, the tribunal earlier heard.

Kwan had collected different poisons and ingredients bought under a shell company he had set up out his workplace, Happy House Surgery, which he told colleagues was formed to manage his properties, the tribunal heard.

He carried out the “callous” plot as he saw Mr O’Hara as an “obstacle” to Kwan’s inheritance of his mother’s St Thomas Street’ home in the event of her death, the panel heard.

The tribunal said it was “evident” Kwan had “used his medical knowledge and professional experience in order to gain the trust of [Mr O’Hara] and to carry out the crime”.

It said claims Kwan had made since, such as the giving the toxin was an “isolated unprecedented mistake” and accusing Mr O’Hara of not checking the letters were genuine, showed a “profound lack of insight and remorse” and smacked of victim blaming.

Kwan, who previously told the tribunal he wished to “sincerely apologise” for his actions, chose to make no representations about the sanction imposed by the panel.