Wednesday 28 August 2019

Whatever The Finsbury Park Mosque Attacker Is......He Is Not Welsh....Yet Why Is That Impression Given?


Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

In June 2017 Darren Osborne drove a van into a crowd coming out of the Finsbury Park Mosque in London. One man was killed.

I remember at the time being appalled at the time. Then being truly stunned that he had rented the van from a place in Pontyclun, almost at the beginning of the Rhondda Cynon Taff area. Which he meant he drove all the way along the M4 to London to commit this hate crime. I didn't understand how a Welshman would have been prepared to do this at a place so far away.

He is now in the news again following an alleged assault on a fellow prisoner. And this time Twitter has informed me of something I wasn't aware of.

Whilst he lived in Cardiff .He's not Welsh.

He was in fact born in Singapore and spent his formative years in Weston-Super-Mare.

Now you may say, rightly, that this really has no baring on the crime which he committed. What is also true and needs to be stressed here before I go on is that I'm not saying that there is no one born in Wales capable of committing a similar act.

But the thing that Twitter pointed out was that the Wales Online article explaining the latest incident gave the impression that he was Welsh.

So I looked instead at the BBC Wales online article and it too gave a similar statement. It said "Osborne, from the Pentwyn area of Cardiff.....". But again this gave the wrong impression. He might have lived there but he wasn't born there.

An admittedly quick skim of articles at the time of the Finsbury Park attack and subsequent trial were also similar in their wording unless they spoke of his background. Only then was it revealed he wasn't Welsh.

So the question needs to be asked why is the impression given that Osborne is Welsh?  Well I've no idea. At best it's lazy journalism.

But what I do know is this. Trust in news organisations is diminishing at a rapid rate. This general impression that Osborne is Welsh has now lasted over two years and it continues today.

All people want are all the facts.

Until the next time.


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