A patient who talked a man out of trying to detonate a bomb in a hospital has agreed in court that what started out as an act of kindness ended up as “something quite brave”.
Nathan Newby has told a jury how he started talking to Mohammed Farooq at St James’s Hospital in Leeds because he thought he was upset and wanted to try to cheer him up.
But, after Farooq showed him his home-made pressure cooker bomb in a bag and told him his plan to explode it in a cafe full of nurses, Mr Newby convinced him to move away from the hospital entrance and, after hours of talking, alerted the police, Sheffield Crown Court heard.
Giving evidence at Farooq’s trial, Mr Newby agreed with Gul Nawaz Hussain KC, defending, who asked him: “What started off as kindness turned, instead, into something quite brave. I’m sure people have said that to you.”
Earlier on Monday, a police video interview of Mr Newby was played at the trial of Farooq, who is accused of planning a terror attack at St James’s Hospital and the US base at RAF Menwith Hill, near Harrogate.
In the interview played in court, Mr Newby told police officers how he spotted the defendant as he was walking back into St James’s in the early hours of January 20 after he had sneaked out of his ward to the pub.
He said: “He just looked upset, as though he’d had some really bad news.
“I’m quite good at judging people just by looking at them, I’m quite good at reading people’s body language.
“I just thought I’d go over and see if he’s all right.
“I thought, if he was down, I’d try and cheer him up.”
Mr Newby described how he began to chat with Farooq who told him he “just wanted to get them back” and pointed at the hospital.
He said the defendant described how he was either a student or had worked at the hospital for two years but now “he’s lost everything and just wanted to get them back for what they’d done”.
Mr Newby said Farooq told him: “They’ve stabbed me in the back. They’ve f***** me over.
I talked to him for so many hours and he’s had a gun on him all the way through me talking to him— Nathan Newby
He told the officers that the defendant was agitated and kept looking down at a bag.
Mr Newby asked Farooq what was in bag and “he said ‘it’s just a bomb’”.
He said Farooq told him he planning to walk into the hospital canteen.
“He was just going to set it off and walk out,” he said.
Mr Newby said: “He even said that he was waiting for the right time, when it would be full of nurses.”
He said: “I was quite shocked. I thought ‘wow’.
“I’m looking at what he said was a bomb.”
Mr Newby said: “He just seemed normal, just like it was normal, as if he’d been shopping and he was showing me a set of trainers.”
He said: “I just started talking to try and keep him calm.
“My priority was to get him away from the hospital.”
Mr Newby told the officers how he persuaded Farooq to move to a bench where he talked to him for a long time.
“I was talking to keep him calm,” he said. “I didn’t want him flipping.”
The witness said he thought at one point about whether he would need to wrestle him to ground but “he seemed to be quite calm”.
Mr Newby said Farooq eventually said he wanted to hand himself in and passed him his phone to call 999.
It was during the emergency call that Farooq produced a handgun, which later turned out to be an imitation.
The witness said he refused to take the gun from him and asked him to put it on the bench.
Before producing the gun, the defendant shook Mr Newby’s hand, asked him for a cuddle and said “you seem like a nice lad”.
Mr Newby told the police: “I talked to him for so many hours and he’s had a gun on him all the way through me talking to him.
“What if I had wrestled him to the ground and he had got agitated?
“At a lot of what ifs.”
Mr Newby said he had been stressed because was in hospital for two weeks and unable to work and described how he had discussed this with Farooq as well family matters.
When he gave evidence in court, Mr Newby agreed with Mr Hussain who asked him: “It was clear to you (Farooq) wasn’t well, wasn’t he?”
Prosecutors have told the jury that the pressure cooker bomb Farooq had with him was a viable device, modelled on one used in the 2013 Boston Marathon attacks.
Farooq, 28, from Leeds, denies preparing acts of terrorism, although he has admitted a number of other offences including possessing a pressure cooker bomb “with intent to endanger life or cause serious injury to property”.
The jury has also been told that Farooq had a grievance against several of his former colleagues at St James’s Hospital, where he worked, and “had been conducting a poison pen campaign against them”.
Mr Hussain has told the court his client was “ready and willing” to detonate the home-made bomb at the hospital because of a “sense of anger and grievance” towards work colleagues but was not motivated by Islamist extremism and not radicalised.
