Radical 'lone wolf' hospital worker planned to slaughter nurses with homemade bomb

Mohammad Farooq was one the verge of carrying out a “lone wolf” assault on St James’s Hospital in Leeds when he was waiting ready to explode his pressure cooker bomb when he was spotted by a patient.

The patient managed to “talk down” Farooq, who worked at the world famous hospital as a clinical support worker, as police raced to the scene in the early hours of January 20, last year.

It is alleged Farooq, 28, planned to “seek his own martyrdom” through a “murderous terrorist attack” by detonating the bomb, then knifing as many people as possible to death before using an imitation gun to incite police to shoot him dead.

Jonathan Sandiford KC, prosecuting, yesterday told Sheffield Crown Court how Farooq immersed himself in an “extremist Islamic ideology” before concocting a “plan A” to attack RAF Menwith Hill, the British-owned US military base near Harrogate.

But following reconnaissance missions he opted for “plan B” - the “softer and less well-protected target than a military base” the jury was told.

Mr Sandiford claimed Farooq also had a “secondary motive” as he harboured a grievance against several former colleagues who he had been targeting with poison pen letters.

However the prosecutor said “two pieces of good fortune intervened” to stop the intended deadly attack.

The first was that a bomb threat he sent in a text to an off-duty nurse in order to lure people to the car park where he was waiting with the bomb, was not seen for almost an hour, meaning the full-scale evacuation he had hoped for failed to materialise.

The prosecutor said Farooq left but returned shortly afterwards with a new plan to wait in a hospital cafe for a staff shift change and detonate his device, “killing as many nurses as possible”.

But the jury was told “luck intervened again” when patient Nathan Newby, went outside for a cigarette and “noticed the defendant”.

Mr Sandiford said: “Mr Newby realised something was amiss and began to talk to him instead of walking away.

“That simple act of kindness almost certainly saved many lives that night because, as the defendant was later to tell the police officers who arrested him, Mr Newby succeeded in ‘talking him down’.”

Mr Sandiford said the defendant revealed his plan to take the bomb into the hospital and “kill as many nurses as possible”.

He said: “Mr Newby stayed with the defendant, keeping him engaged and calm. Mr Newby also persuaded the defendant to move away from the main entrance to a seating area so that the IED was as far away from the building as it was possible to go.”

Jurors heard Farooq then handed his phone over to Mr Newby to ring 999.

When officers arrived they found him wielding a “viable” pressure cooker bomb containing just under 10 kilograms of explosive. In his car. He also had two knives, black tape and a blank-firing, imitation gun.

The court was told how Farooq had become self-radicalised by accessing extremist material and propaganda online, including material published by Islamic State, al Qaida, videos on TikTok and lectures by Anwar Al-Awlaki, the Yemeni-American radical preacher.

He had obtained bomb-making instructions in a magazine published by al Qaida to encourage lone wolf terrorist attacks against the west.

Farooq has admitted firearms offences, possessing an explosive substance with intent and having a document likely to be useful to a person preparing or committing an act of terrorism.

But he denies preparing acts of terrorism.

Mr Sandiford said the defendant admits intending to attack St James Hospital but denies any intention to attack Menwith Hill.

The trial continues.