Darren Osborne is a disturbed, violent man with a history of crime, and was convicted of murder, not a terrorist offence. For the judge to describe him as having been radicalised, in middle age, “over the space of a month or so” (Report, 3 February) may be correct in a narrow sense of the word. Osborne appears to have been vulnerable to online propaganda. However, could it be that this was simply the convenient vehicle, or excuse, for an urge towards violence? Seeking an external justification for such antisocial urges isn’t unknown. Maybe we should be wary of overinflating the profile and influence of the far right, and feeding the online extremist propaganda machine, by ascribing a considered motive to a man who was looking for a cause that would allow him to justify to himself, and others, his violent antisocial feelings?
Deborah Henderson
Oxford
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