A man on trial for launching a terror attack in Finsbury Park last year acted out of a warped hatred of Muslims, a prosecutor has said, having earlier dismissed the accused’s defence as absurd.

Darren Osborne, who is alleged to have driven a van into a group of people wearing traditional Muslim dress in north London, had told the jury a man named Dave jumped into the van he had been driving and carried out the attack without his prior knowledge.

Giving evidence on Wednesday morning, he said Dave got into the passenger’s side shortly before the incident. The two then swapped seats with the van still moving and Osborne hid in the footwell, he said. Shortly afterwards, Dave drove the vehicle into a group, the defendant said.

“The real truth is that none of this happened. You were the only person in the van [immediately prior to the incident] and all of this is just a desperate attempt to place Dave in the driver’s seat,” the prosecutor Jonathan Rees QC said to him. “It is an absurd account, isn’t it?”

Osborne replied: “No, it’s not.”

Delivering his closing speech to the jury at Woolwich crown court, Rees said Osborne had acted alone and out of a “warped hatred of all Muslims, which had its roots in material he had watched on television and online”.

Rees accused him of lying on the stand and inventing the involvement of Dave and another man called Terry Jones. He said Osborne’s first mention of them had come five days into his trial, at which he had previously offered no defence.

He suggested to the jury that Osborne’s decision to serve a defence statement five days into his trial, then a contradictory declaration three days later, “tells you everything you need to know about the defendant’s approach to these proceedings”.

He added: “We suggest that the defendant has conjured up a defence out of thin air.” Osborne’s lawyer, Lisa Wilding QC, is due to deliver her closing speech on Thursday.

Earlier, Rees asked Osborne why CCTV footage showed only one man leaving the van and what had happened to Dave, adding: “He’s not a magician, is he?” Osborne replied: “He is like Dynamo [the magician]; an illusion, an illusionist. He can make himself vanish, perhaps.”



Osborne claimed Dave had jumped into the van as it had driven under a railway bridge, heading south on Seven Sisters Road. He said he was unable to identify on CCTV footage where that had occurred and said it was “sod’s law” that the cameras had not picked it up.

The court was previously told CCTV cameras covered the whole of the van’s journey except for a period of four seconds, when it was moving along Isledon Road, shortly after passing under the bridge.

Osborne said he had ducked into the footwell before the incident to change his trousers because he felt he may have urinated on them.

Rees referred to Osborne’s claim – shortly after his arrest – that he had lost control of the van, suggesting he was trying to save himself. “Because, deep down, there is a bit of a coward in you, isn’t there?” Osborne did not respond.

After Osborne railed against Muslims during his evidence, Rees told him the witness stand was there not for him to spread hatred, but to answer questions.

Osborne is charged with the murder of Makram Ali, 51, and the attempted murders of other people on 19 June last year, in what the prosecution has characterised as a terror attack against members of the Muslim community. He denies the charges.

The trial continues.

