Speaking outside her Downing Street office yesterday, May said officers responded to the attack in one minute and declared it a terror attack within eight minutes.
Ten people have been injured in the attack on Muslim worshippers leaving the Finsbury Park mosque, with eight of them sent to hospitals.
Police are investigating whether a man who died while being given first aid at the scene was killed by the attack or something else.
The chairman of the Finsbury Park Mosque, Mohammed Kozbar, said that “mainstream media” was unwilling at first to call the attack a terrorist incident.
He said the attack was no different than the recent attacks on London Bridge and Manchester Arena and said the Muslim community is “in shock.”
May says the man, who ploughed a van into a crowd of people leaving Ramadaan night prayers, acted alone and that people outside the mosque apprehended him.
Toufik Kacimi, chief executive of the Muslim Welfare House, says the attacker shouted at the crowd, and people grabbed him and started hitting him.
He says the local imam “went there and saved him. He saved his life basically.”
It’s believed the attacker shouted: “I will kill all Muslims.”
A 48-year-old white man has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder.