St James' Hospital bomb suspect 'seemed like a nice guy' says patient who talked him down

Mohammed Farooq, 28, was arrested outside St James's Hospital, Leeds, in the early hours of January 20 after police were called by a man called Nathan Newby.

Sheffield Crown Court has heard Farooq, who was a clinical support worker at the hospital, had a viable pressure cooker bomb with him and had planned to explode it in a cafe full of nurses.

On Wednesday (Nov 8) jurors heard a recording of a call between a tactical firearms officer and Mr Newby, who started talking to Farooq after spotting him "looking upset" outside the hospital's Gledhow Wing.

Asked if Farooq seemed like he was suffering with mental health issues, Mr Newby said: "Yeah, he actually does seem like a nice guy. He doesn't seem, like, aggressive or owt like that. He seems like a nice guy deep down if you know what I mean."

Mr Newby also told the officer Farooq was the one who had told him to ring the police.

He said Farooq had a bomb "like a stove" and what looked like a pistol, which later turned out to be an imitation.

Asked by the officer if Farooq had said what his intentions were, Mr Newby replied: "He has said that he's gonna (...) he was going to kill quite a few of them."

In a transcript of a conversation between the two men heard on the call, which was read in court, Mr Newby could be heard asking Farooq why he thought "that's the right way to do it".

Farooq told him: "I don't know, I've just had enough, I don't know."

Mr Newby also told the defendant: "All I can say is you've shown no aggression to me mate."

Jurors have heard that Farooq had a grievance against several of his former colleagues at St James's Hospital and "had been conducting a poison pen campaign against them".

The court heard statements from some colleagues who believed he was responsible for "malicious" messages and emails they received in 2021 and 2022.

One nurse described receiving a WhatsApp message from a number she did not recognise saying: "I will burn your whole world down."

The message said: "I have been notified you have been speaking to people harshly."

The court heard the nurse believed the only person who could potentially be responsible was Farooq, after she had spoken to him about why he had not taken a patient's blood sugar.

A statement from another nurse said she received a text in June 2022 with her bank account and National Insurance number on it, which she believed someone had seen after she downloaded a payslip on a work computer.

She said: "The only person I believe it could be is Farooq. (...) On numerous occasions I have had to tell Farooq off for different things including not having his uniform."

Prosecutors have said that the pressure cooker bomb Farooq had with him was a viable device, modelled on one used in the 2013 Boston Marathon attacks.

He is accused of planning a terror attack at St James's Hospital and the US base at RAF Menwith Hill, near Harrogate.

Farooq, 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".

His defence team say he 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.