Counter-terror detectives yesterday praised the 'bravery' of a hospital patient who persuaded a would-be suicide bomber to abandon the deadly attack he was about to launch on the building.

Trainee nurse Mohammad Sohail Farooq, 28, was yesterday convicted of plotting the atrocity at St James's Hospital in Leeds after being radicalised watching anti-Semitic videos on TikTok.

He took a viable home-made bomb to his own workplace, modelled on the device used to kill three people at the Boston Marathon in 2013, but with double the amount of explosives.

Amazingly, however, Farooq agreed to call off his plan after Nathan Newby by chance engaged him in conversation outside the building, giving him a hug and telling him to think about his children.

Last night police said they were 'sincerely grateful' to Mr Newby, saying what the court heard was a 'simple act of kindness' had averted what would have been a 'devastating' attack.

It can be disclosed that police discovered Farooq had watched anti-Semitic videos and taken a photograph of a plaque which commemorated Jewish links to the hospital.

In the early hours of January 20 last year, Farooq – a clinical support worker whose wife was pregnant with their second child - sent a bomb threat to the ward where he worked, hoping to cause an evacuation and then detonate the bomb in the crowd outside.

But when the recipient failed to see the message he returned to his car to retrieve the bomb - manufactured from a pressure cooker and containing 22lbs (10kg) of explosives – as well as a knife and a blank-firing handgun before loitering outside the hospital entrance.

Mr Newby was returning from a walk when he saw Farooq looking as though he had been 'given some bad news' and decided to 'try and cheer him up'.

After a 'totally normal chat', Farooq unzipped his bag to show Mr Newby the bomb.

Mr Newby moved Farooq to a bench away from the hospital entrance and, three hours later, persuaded him to let him to call the police.

Afterwards he told police: 'I was shocked I had managed to talk him out of it.

'I reached out my hand, I gave him a hug and said mate you've done the right thing, to try and keep him calm.

'I thought what would have happened if I had wrestled him to the floor and he got agitated - a lot of what ifs.'

Farooq did not give evidence at his trial, but his barrister told the jury at Sheffield Crown Court he maintained that his actions were motivated by a 'sense of anger and grievance' towards hospital colleagues.

He had been carrying out a secret poison pen campaign after being made to repeat a year of his course because he was regularly ringing in sick and did not pass the required exams.

Farooq initially planned to attack the top secret listening station at RAF Menwith Hill in North Yorkshire, but switched targets after conducting a series of reconnaissance trips and finding it was too well guarded.

Jonathan Sandiford KC told jurors that Farooq intended 'to commit a terrorist atrocity and seek his own martyrdom'.

Farooq pleaded guilty to possession an explosive substance with intent to endanger life, firearms offences, and possession of terrorist material but denied preparing acts of terrorism.

However, he was found guilty yesterday and will be sentenced at a later date.

Afterwards Detective Superintendent Paul Greenwood, head of investigations for Counter Terrorism Policing North East, praised Mr Newby's 'act of real bravery'.

'He persuaded him not to go through with the attack, which would have been devastating, and persuaded him to hand himself into the police,' he said.

'It was a real act of courage that averted a disastrous attack on the hospital.'

Professor Phil Wood, chief executive of Leeds Teaching Hospitals, thanked police and staff for their 'calm' response.

He added that he 'extremely grateful to Nathan Newby for his courage and initiative that morning'.