Finsbury Park attacker Darren Osborne has been sentenced to life in prison - with a minimum term of 43 years - for driving his van into a crowd of Muslim worshippers outside a mosque last year.
A jury took only an hour to convict Osborne, 48, of murder and attempted murder yesterday. The father of four, from Cardiff, killed 51-year-old Makram Ali and injured at least nine others in the attack in north London, after which he reportedly smiled and blew a kiss to bystanders.
Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb said today that Osborne had planned “a suicide mission” and expected to be shot dead. “This was a terrorist attack,” she added. “You intended to kill. Your mindset became one of malevolent hatred.”
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The Daily Mail describes Osborne as a “far-right loner” who became radicalised after accessing extreme far-right material online.
“The speed at which he became brainwashed by inflammatory material he found on social media sites has left counterterrorism experts deeply concerned, and has led to calls for technology giants to do more to remove it,” says The Daily Telegraph.