Leeds<\/a> intending to \u201ckill as many nurses as possible\u201d was jailed for at least 37 years last year. After asking for a cuddle, Farooq told Newby to \u201cphone the police before I change my mind\u201d.<\/p>\nThe judge who sentenced Farooq, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb, said Newby\u2019s \u201cdecency and kindness on 20 January 2023 prevented an atrocity in a maternity wing of a major British hospital\u201d.<\/p>\n
His evidence had been \u201camong the most remarkable this court has ever heard\u201d, she added.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, Newby will receive the George Medal \u2013 the second-highest civilian gallantry award \u2013 for his life-saving actions.<\/p>\n
Newby, 35, from Leeds, said he thought Farooq was \u201cprobably a nice guy\u201d who was \u201cgoing through bad things at the time\u201d, and saw himself as someone who was \u201cjust in the right place at the right time\u201d.<\/p>\n
During his trial, Farooq was called \u201ca self-radicalised lone wolf terrorist\u201d, 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 with nurses on his ward.<\/p>\n
Newby, who was a patient at the hospital on the night Farooq planned to carry out the bombing, said he had gone outside for a vape and \u201ca bit of fresh air\u201d when he saw Farooq with his hands in his pockets, \u201cswaying like he\u2019d had some bad news or something\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just went over to see if he was alright, to see if I could make him feel better,\u201d Newby said. \u201cI said: \u2018How are you, pal? Are you alright?\u2019 and it just went from there really.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said Farooq eventually told him he was there \u201cfor some sort of revenge\u201d, and revealed he had a bomb about an hour into the conversation.<\/p>\n
Newby said: \u201cI could hear it in his voice, it wasn\u2019t a joke \u2026 So I asked to have a look at it, just to confirm it, and then he just happily opened it up and showed me it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Newby said part of him was scared but his main concern was to try to move Farooq away from the building.<\/p>\n
He said he was going through his own struggles with mental health at the time and thought: \u201cIf it goes off, it\u2019s just going to be me and him, and I want to make sure it\u2019s just me and him and not no one else.\u201d<\/p>\n
He asked Farooq about the radius and moved him away to some nearby benches, working out that \u201cif it had have gone off at least, it would have just took the doors, it wouldn\u2019t take the whole building out\u201d.<\/p>\n
Newby said the plan was \u201cjust pure instinct\u201d, and, over the next several hours, the pair \u201cjust chatted\u201d, with Farooq telling him about his family and children.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe asked for a cuddle a few times, and I said yeah, of course you can.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said Farooq seemed \u201cnormal\u201d, adding: \u201cI don\u2019t judge anybody. Everybody\u2019s different and unique in their own ways aren\u2019t they? I didn\u2019t judge him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked how he felt about him now, Newby said: \u201cHe probably is a nice guy. It was just his head was in the wrong place at the wrong time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A hospital patient who managed to talk a man out of detonating a bomb in a maternity wing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":493641,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-493640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=493640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493640\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/493641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=493640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=493640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=493640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}