A GP and anaesthetic nurse who both tried to murder men by injecting them in separate attacks could lose their NHS pensions.
Teesside medics Thomas Kwan, who tried to kill his mum’s partner in an inheritance row with a fake covid jab, and theatre nurse Darren Harris, who, unprovoked, stabbed a shop owner with a needle and injected a breathing-stopping drug, could both lose their retirement savings.
Kwan was jailed for more than 31 years last November, while Harris was found guilty of attempted murder this week and faces jail when he’s sentenced in March.
The Echo understands Health Secretary Wes Streeting is poised to say NHS Pension Scheme members’ benefits should be forfeited where the member has been convicted of an offence committed before those benefits are payable.
A Department for Health spokesperson said: “These were appalling crimes, and we offer our sincere sympathies to Patrick O’Hara, Gary Lewis and their families.”
But they added: “We do not routinely comment on individual cases related to the NHS Pension Scheme.”
GP Thomas Kwan, 53, injected his mum’s partner with a fake Covid jab in an extraordinary plot over money.
Kwan, of Ingleby Barwick, planned the murder for months, writing fake NHS letters and going to his mum’s Newcastle home last January (2024) in disguise to kill Patrick O’Hara, 72, in plain sight.
Mr O’Hara survived and was admitted to intensive care with a flesh-eating disease.
The “money-obsessed” Sunderland GP was motivated by greed after finding out his mum, Jenny Leung, had changed her will so Mr O’Hara could stay in her home should she die first.
In November he was jailed for 31 years and five months.
The once-respected GP’s pension would have been worth about £1m by the time he was due to retire, according to reports in The Mirror.
The value of any NHS pension held by Darren Harris is not known, but the Band 6 specialist anaesthetic practitioner is thought to have been on a salary north of £40k a year.
Harris stabbed Northallerton vinyl shop owner Gary Lewis with a needle in a totally unprovoked attack in July last year.
Having been in and out of Mr Lewis’ Betterdaze shop all morning, Harris returned armed with a needle and stabbed his victim, injecting him with a drug which relaxes the muscles and can stop someone breathing. It would normally be used in theatres where he worked.
He stood like he was watching a “TV programme” while his victim “lay dying on the cobbles”.
Mr Lewis survived thanks to medics, but no thanks to Harris, who claimed he had only injected water to frighten him. He had actually stolen the needle and drug rocuronium from his work at James Cook Hospital in Middlesbrough the night before.
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He would have been very experienced in anaesthetic drugs, Leeds Crown Court heard last week. A jury found him guilty on Tuesday (January 28) of attempted murder after just an hour and a half deliberating.
Harris began working for the NHS in 1999 as a porter, the court heard, and he went on to undertake training to become an operating department practitioner.
He spent 17 years working in the general theatres in anaesthetics before taking a role in the cardiothoracic theatres, being promoted to Band 6 after two years because of his experience.
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