A HERO who talked a terrorist out of detonating a bomb on a maternity wing said the attacker “asked him for a cuddle” before he was arrested.
Nathan Newby, 35, stopped Mohammad Farooq from setting off a homemade pressure cooker explosive in St James’s Hospital, Leeds, in 2023.
The heroic patient, who managed to stop the attack with a simple act of kindness, has now spoken out for the first time about the incident.
Last year Farooq was sentenced to a minimum term of 37 years in prison over his foiled bomb plot.
It was heard at trial that Farooq had become a “self-radicalised lone-wolf terrorist”, inspired by the so-called Islamic State group.
The court was also told he chose the hospital as a target as he had been a clinical support worker there and had a long-running grievance with nurses on his ward.
For his brave actions that day Nathan will be given the second-highest civilian gallantry award – the George Medal – at a ceremony.
Speaking before receiving the award, Nathan said Farooq was probably “a nice guy”, adding that the would-be terrorist was likely “going through bad things at the time.”
Nathan told how he thought of himself as someone who was “just in the right place at the right time.”
The hero patient had gone outside for some fresh air when he spotted Farooq with his hands in his pockets, swaying as if he had received bad news.
Nathan said he went over and simply asked Farooq, who was carrying a bomb, how he was doing with a conversation starting from there.
Farooq told Nathan that he was at the hospital for “some sort of revenge” and Nathan noted that he was constantly looking at his bag.
Nathan said: “And then I asked him what was in it… and then he just came out with it… he ummed and aahed, didn’t want to, but then I got it out of him. He just said it’s a bomb.”
Bravely, the 35-year-old asked to look at the bomb to confirm and Farooq showed him.
Nathan admitted that he was scared but focused on moving the terrorist away from the hospital.
Farooq opened up to Nathan about his mental health struggles while Nathan worked on trying to figure out the radius of the bomb.
Nathan told how he hoped that if the device went off it would only be him and Farooq who were injured.
After moving the bomb-carrying man to a nearby bench Nathan said the two just talked for hours, as Farooq told him about his family and children.
“He asked for a cuddle a few times, and I said yeah, of course you can”, Nathan said.
During the pair’s conversation Farooq is understood to have called Nathan a “top guy.”
Farooq eventually told Nathan to call the police “before he changed his mind.”
While on the phone to cops Nathan told them that Farooq “seemed like a nice guy deep down.”
It wasn’t until armed cops arrived and arrested Farooq that Nathan realised the gravity of the situation, he said.
The hero said it was after he was sitting down in the back of a police van that the emotions started to hit him.
He said: “I only think about that night (now) if someone brings it up.
“And then it’s like, it’s crazy how it could have gone….I was a patient at the time, so I wouldn’t be here, because I was at the front of the building, so it would have took me out.”
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.”
