Leeds St James’s Hospital bomb accused was ‘lone wolf’, jury told

The prosecutor told the court that “two pieces of good fortune intervened” to stop the hospital attack.

Mr Sandiford said the first was that a bomb threat Mr Farooq had texted 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.

That meant the full-scale evacuation Mr Farooq had hoped for did not happen, he said.

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

But “luck intervened again” when Nathan Newby, a patient, noticed the defendant outside the hospital and struck up a conversation.

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

“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 told Mr Newby about his plan to take the bomb into the hospital and “kill as many nurses as possible”.

“Mr Newby stayed with the defendant, keeping him engaged and calm,” he added.

“Mr Newby also persuaded the defendant to move away from the main entrance to a seating area so the IED was as far away from the building as it was possible to go.”

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