London attack: Suspect’s family says his actions are ‘sheer madness’

LONDON — The police on Tuesday (June 20) questioned a man suspected of deliberately mowing down Muslims in London, as the Interior Minister said Britain was “bruised but not broken” by the series of terror attacks.

British media reported that the suspect, Darren Osborne, 47, was born in Singapore in 1969. His family moved back to Britain when he was a child. They gave no further details on his Singapore connection.

He is said to have expressed increasingly antagonistic views towards Muslims in the weeks following the recent London Bridge terror attack.

Muslim residents on the Cardiff estate where he lived with his partner and four children, claimed he had previously been friendly but said his attitude had changed in recent weeks.

The suspect’s family said he was “troubled”, describing his action  as “sheer madness”. In a statement given to local media on behalf of his family, his nephew Ellis Osborne said: “We are massively shocked; it’s unbelievable, it still hasn’t really sunk in.

“We are devastated for the families, our hearts go out to the people who have been injured. It’s madness. It is obviously sheer madness.”

The suspect’s sister Nicola Osborne added: “I’m sorry that my brother has been that troubled that it has taken him to this level of troubledness. He has just been troubled for a long time.”

Britain was coming to terms with the aftermath of its fourth bloody assault in three months following early Monday’s van attack on worshippers leaving the Finsbury Park Mosque in north London. The string of attacks had “bruised but not broken the heart of this great nation”, Home Secretary Amber Rudd said. 

One man who was already receiving first aid at the time died following the assault, while nine people were taken to hospital and two others were treated for minor injuries.

The three previous terror attacks in recent months were all Islamist-inspired. A car and knife attack on March 22 in London killed four pedestrians on Westminster Bridge and a police officer guarding the British Parliament. 

Two months later, on May 22, 22 people were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a pop concert in the northern city of Manchester. On June 3, eight people were killed in a van and knife attack on London Bridge and nearby Borough Market.

The latest attack raised fears of retaliation against Muslims. 

Ms Rudd said Muslims needed to feel safe in Britain and the government was working to tackle all forms of hate crime and extremism.

“Indicative figures suggest that over half of those who experience hate because of their religion are Muslim. Any hate crime is unacceptable but this stark figure is something we will not shy away from,” she wrote in The Guardian newspaper. “We stand with the Muslim community — you are not alone, we share your pain and we will not let you down.” AGENCIES