AN East Lancashire who tried to frame his landlord’s partner as a terrorist as revenge in a housing dispute is being hunted by police. Gerald Banyard, of Whalley, sent two handwritten notes to police in the days after the Westminster Bridge attack by Khalid Masood in March 2017, falsely claiming that another person had been involved in the atrocity. The 67-year-old was found guilty of two counts of perverting the court of justice at Southwark Crown Court on Tuesday, but failed to attend the verdict hearing, with a warrant now having been issued for his arrest by the judge. Commander Richard Smith, head of the Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism, said: “In the immediate aftermath of the Westminster attack, our main priority was to establish whether the attacker might have plotted with others, and whether there was any outstanding threat.
Police are searching for a man who was convicted of falsely claiming there was a second person involved in the 2017 Westminster terror attack. Scotland Yard said Gerald Banyard, 67, tried to frame an innocent man over Khalid Masood’s deadly car and knife rampage “out of spite for his former landlord”. Masood killed four people on Westminster Bridge and stabbed PC Keith Palmer to death outside Parliament, before being shot dead by police in the.
AN East Lancashire who tried to frame his landlord’s partner as a terrorist as revenge in a housing dispute is being hunted by police. Gerald Banyard, of Whalley, sent two handwritten notes to police in the days after the Westminster Bridge attack by Khalid Masood in March 2017, falsely claiming that another person had been involved in the atrocity. The 67-year-old was found guilty of two counts of perverting the court of justice at Southwark Crown Court on Tuesday, but failed to attend the verdict hearing, with a warrant now having been issued for his arrest by the judge. Commander Richard Smith, head of the Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism, said: “In the immediate aftermath of the Westminster attack, our main priority was to establish whether the attacker might have plotted with others, and whether there was any outstanding threat.