British police issued an apology Thursday for what they called a “missed opportunity” that may have allowed a deadly attack on a Manchester synagogue to proceed, as a man who assisted the attacker was handed a lengthy prison sentence.
Mohammad Asim Bashir, 31, pleaded guilty last month to driving Jihad Al-Shamie to the UK Defence Academy in Oxfordshire in August 2025, where Al-Shamie conducted hostile reconnaissance of the facility.
At sentencing Thursday at Manchester Crown Court, Judge Bobbie Cheema-Grubb handed Bashir a minimum 17-year prison term, calling him a “committed jihadist” who had eagerly plotted a terrorist attack alongside Al-Shamie. Text messages exchanged between the two men revealed antisemitic beliefs and discussions about carrying out violence.
Six weeks after that reconnaissance trip to Oxfordshire, Al-Shamie drove a vehicle into pedestrians and then launched a knife attack at the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue. One Jewish worshipper died from stab wounds, and a second person was accidentally killed by police during the response.
Al-Shamie, a 35-year-old British citizen of Syrian descent, told officers he was acting on behalf of Islamic State before police shot him dead at the scene.
Prosecutors revealed during Bashir’s sentencing that Al-Shamie had actually been arrested twice before carrying out the fatal attack — once in February 2025 on an alleged breach of a non-molestation order, and again in September on an alleged rape charge. Authorities seized his mobile devices during those arrests, but the data on those phones was not examined until after the synagogue attack had already taken place.
Greater Manchester Police Chief Constable Stephen Watson released a statement saying he was “deeply sorry” that his department had not reviewed the seized data, which he acknowledged contained significant evidence of Al-Shamie’s intentions and mindset.
“It is clear that our not having reviewed the data available to us prior to the attack constitutes a missed opportunity,” Watson stated.
Prosecutors noted that Bashir had accompanied Al-Shamie on a 10-hour round trip from Manchester to the UK Defence Academy, which serves as an educational institution for armed forces personnel and government officials on matters of defence and security.
In October, Al-Shamie carried out the synagogue attack and then contacted police himself, stating: “I pledge allegiance to the Islamic State and I have killed two Jews.”
Watson said it would be up to the Independent Office for Police Conduct and the official inquests into the two deaths to fully assess the consequences of the failure to examine the phone data. He added, however, that “there can be little doubt that the information contained within these devices would have inspired further investigative action.”
