BREAKING: Finsbury Park attacker Darren Osborne guilty of murder and attempted murder

Makram Ali, 51, was killed and 12 others were injured when Osborne drove the hired vehiclw into a group of men. 

A jury of eight women and four men took just one hour to convict the father of four who had denied both charges.

Osborne, 48, of Glyn Rhosyn in Cardiff, nodded and looked around the courtroom as the verdicts were delivered at Woolwich Crown Court.

He was found guilty of murder and attempted murder, with police and prosecutors saying it was an act of terrorism.

Part way through his trial, Osborne suddenly denied he had been driving the van at the moment of impact in an 11th hour defence the prosecution dismissed as being conjured “out of thin air”.

Instead, he blamed an accomplice called Dave and said he had no idea he 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”.

During the nine-day trial Osborne told the court he had wanted to kill senior Labour figures including leader Jeremy Corbyn and London Mayor Sadiq Khan.

He had also plotted to murder Rochdale Labour councillor Aftab Hussain, who he said had backed a member of the grooming gangs, but called it off because he wanted “more casualties”.

The attacker admitted he had initially hoped to “plough through” as many people as possible at the pro-Palestinian Al Quds march in central London, previously attended by Mr Corbyn.

But after driving a hire van from Cardiff to London on June 18, road closures thwarted Osborne’s plan so he travelled across London to find a mosque and eventually ended up in Finsbury Park in Mr Corbyn’s constituency at around midnight.

CCTV footage shows the van circling roads close to the Muslim Welfare House and Finsbury Park mosque before turning hard left into a crowded pavement at the entrance of Whadcoat Street at 12.16am.

Two minutes earlier Mr Ali had collapsed on the floor after attending evening prayers, just 100 yards from his front door, prompting bystanders to rush to his aid.

Witnesses said he had been conscious and had wanted to go home in the moments before being struck by the van, which killed him almost instantly. Two others were seriously injured.

A note written by Osborne – which complained about terrorism, the Rotherham child sex scandal, and branded Mr Corbyn a “terrorist sympathiser” – was found in the cab of the van.

Osborne, a “total loner”, had become obsessed with Muslims after watching BBC drama Three Girls in May last year and was angered by what he deemed as inaction following a string of UK terror attacks, his estranged partner Sarah Andrews said.

Police believe these feelings were further fuelled by far-right material, with devices found at Osborne’s family home revealing multiple searches for English Defence League founder Tommy Robinson and Britain First’s Jayda Fransen.