Radicalised loner Darren Osborne jailed for life for 'suicide mission' Finsbury Park mosque attack

Darren Osborne has been jailed for life, with a minimum of 43 years, after deliberately driving a van into a crowd of Muslim worshippers in Finsbury Park.

Osborne, a far-right extremist and ‘loner’, was found guilty of murder and attempted murder after killing Makram Ali, 51, and injuring 12 others in the attack in June 2017.

The killer, 48, from Cardiff, stood with his hands crossed in front of him as sentence was passed, and gave no reaction as Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb told him: “This was a terrorist attack. You intended to kill.”

She said he had been “rapidly radicalised”, adding: “Your mindset became one of malevolent hatred.

“In short you allowed your mind to be poisoned by those who claimed to be leaders.”

The jury at Woolwich Crown Court deliberated for just an hour before convicting the father of four, who had been radicalised by far-right material within just a few weeks.

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Ruzina Akhtar, the daughter of Mr Ali, who died of multiple injuries at the scene of the attack, described Osborne as a ‘very narrow minded, heartless being’.

In an impact statement read out in court, she said it was ‘heartbreaking’ that his five-year-old grandson constantly asks where his grandfather is, and why he can no longer take him to the park to play football.

She said: ‘I have suffered with recurring nightmares. The scene of the incident is near to our house. We walk past this this most days and are constantly reminded.’

Mr Ali’s two sons are 13 and 14 years old, the court heard.

‘They will now grow up without the help and support of their father, Mrs Akhtar said.

‘Without his guidance and assistance in life.’

Mr Ali had collapsed after leaving prayers during Ramadan at the Muslim Welfare House mosque, but was still alive when Osborne carried out the attack at 12.16am.

During the trial, Osborne suddenly denied he had been driving the van at the moment of impact, an 11th hour defence the prosecution dismissed as being conjured ‘out of thin air’.

He said the perpetrator was a “guy called Dave” who he had met in a pub in Treforest in early April or March last year.

The attacker said he had no idea Dave – one of his two made-up accomplices – intended to smash into a group of pedestrians, and believed they were on their way to a pub to meet a third co-conspirator, Terry.

But jurors agreed with prosecutors who dubbed his increasingly improbable version of events a “total fabrication” and “frankly absurd”.