'I was in the right place at the right time': Hero who stopped Leeds hospital bombing to get top bravery award
Nathan Newby doesn’t think of himself as a hero.
The 35-year-old from Leeds says he was simply “in the right place at the right time“ after he talked an “extremely dangerous“ terrorist out of detonating a bomb at St James’s Hospital.
Mr Newby, who stopped an atrocity through an act of kindness, spoke publicly for the first time about his encounter with Mohammad Farooq ahead of receiving the George Medal for bravery.
Farooq was jailed last year for life with a minimum term of 37 years after taking a home-made pressure cooker bomb into the hospital in Leeds, intending to “kill as many nurses as possible”.
But today Mr Newby will receive the George Medal – the second-highest civilian gallantry award – for his lifesaving actions.
A trial heard Farooq had become a “self-radicalised lone-wolf terrorist”, inspired by the so-called Islamic State group, but also chose the hospital as a target as he had been a clinical support worker there and had a long-running grievance.
Mr Newby, who was a patient at the hospital on the night Farooq planned to carry out the bombing, said he had gone outside when he saw Farooq.
“I just went over to see if he was alright, to see if I could make him feel better,” Mr Newby said.
He said Farooq eventually told him he was there “for some sort of revenge,” and revealed that he had a bomb about an hour into the conversation.
Mr Newby said “part of me” was scared but that his main concern was to try and move Farooq away from the building.
He said: “If it goes off, it’s just going to be me and him, and I want to make sure it’s just me and him and not no one else.”
Mr Newby said the pair “just chatted” over several hours, with Farooq telling him about his family and children.
“He asked for a cuddle a few times, and I said yeah, of course you can.”
Mr Newby said that Farooq asked him for a hug and called him a “top guy” before telling him: “Phone the police before I change my mind.”
He said: “It was a bit of a relief, but at the end of the day he could have still changed his mind at any time, even if we were on the phone to the police or not.”
Mr Newby said the enormity of what had happened did not hit him until he was sitting in the back of a police van after armed officers arrived and detained Farooq.
“It started sinking in that it could have been different,” he said.
“Emotions started coming, it was like wow, as if that’s just happened.”
Mr Newby said he did not think of himself as a hero, but as someone who was “just in the right place at the right time”.
He previously pleaded guilty to possession of an explosive substance with intent to endanger life, possession of an explosive substance in suspicious circumstances, possession of information likely to be useful to a terrorist, possession of an imitation firearm with intent to commit an indictable offence, and possession of an imitation firearm with intent to cause fear of violence.
The judge who sentenced Farooq, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb, said Mr Newby was “an extraordinary, ordinary man whose decency and kindness on January 20 2023 prevented an atrocity in a maternity wing of a major British hospital”.
Speaking after the case Detective Superintendent Paul Greenwood, head of investigations for Counter Terrorism Policing North East, said: “Farooq came dangerously close to harming innocent people.
”Thanks to the bravery of Nathan Newby he never fully realised his plans and has instead been forced to face the long-term consequences of his extreme ideology and deep-seated grievances.”