Killer to serve 43 years for mosque attack
FInSBuRY Park terrorist Darren Osborne was jailed for a minimum of 43 years yesterday.
The alcoholic loner nodded solemnly and said ‘God bless you all, thank you’ as he was told he will remain a danger for the rest of his life.
Given the time he has already spent in custody Osborne, 48, will not be released until he is 90, if at all.
He carried out his murderous attack outside a mosque in north London last June, driving a rented van into Muslim worshippers who were leaving evening prayers. Makram Ali was killed and 12 others, who were helping the grandfather after he collapsed just before Osborne struck, were injured.
Mrs Justice Cheema- Grubb said Osborne was on a suicide mission. He was in fact saved by an imam who stopped bystanders from attacking him. Mohammed Mahmoud ‘chose to respond to evil with good’, the judge said.
She said Osborne, a father of four, was rapidly radicalised as he binged on vile online material leaving him full of hatred. The jury heard how he used Twitter, Facebook and Google to follow outspoken British farRight figureheads.
The judge told Osborne at high-security Woolwich Crown Court: ‘You allowed your mind to be poisoned by those who claim to be leaders.
‘You were inspired to carry out an attack on innocent members of the public but the section of the public you chose would reflect your ideology of hate towards Muslims. You acted to kill, maim, injure and terrify as many people as you could.’
The judge jailed Osborne for two concurrent life terms for the murder of Mr Ali and attempted murder of those helping him. He had been convicted on Thursday. She spared him a whole-life term, saying it was a last resort for those who have committed multiple murders.
The court heard that jobless layabout Osborne was a ‘ticking time bomb’ whose spiral into extremism began when he watched the BBC series Three Girls, a dramatisation of the Rochdale grooming scandal. It left him determined to single out Muslims for retribution.
He spent hours online, scouring Twitter and Facebook for far-Right material and following English Defence League leader Tommy Robinson. His handwritten and beer-soaked suicide letter, found in the van, echoed some of Robinson’s most incendiary outbursts.
Osborne’s ‘belligerent and violent character’ was shown in his 30-year criminal record in which he racked up convictions for 102 offences including violence, theft, disorder, fraud and drugs.
Outside court Mr Ali’s daughter, Ruzina Akhtar, said her father would ‘always stay in our hearts and his laughter will echo the walls of our home’.
Following the case, Theresa May insisted internet companies must go ‘further and faster’ to remove extremist or terrorist content. The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said the internet cannot be used as a safe space for terrorists or those who want to spread such content.