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The man police have identified as the Westminster Bridge attacker was a 52-year-old Briton, who was not on a terrorism watch list.
Khalid Masood, who was born Adrian Elms, hired a Hyundai 4x4 in person at the Enterprise Rent-A-Car in north Birmingham earlier this week, describing his profession as a teacher.
However, he never worked as a qualified teacher in English state schools, according to BBC reports.
Born in the county of Kent and a resident of the West Midlands in central England, Masood was known to police and the MI5 by a number of aliases and had a raft of previous convictions dating from 1983 to 2003.
Those included grievous bodily harm, weapons possessions and public order offences.
Masood was once investigated in relation to concerns about violent extremism by British authorities, but the Metropolitan Police have said he "was not the subject of any current investigations and there was no prior intelligence about his intent to mount a terrorist attack".
"He was a peripheral figure. The case is historic — he was not part of the current intelligence picture. There was no prior intelligence of his intent — or of the plot," British Prime Minister, Theresa May told Parliament.
Police raided a home in Birmingham where Masood lived until late last year, according to a neighbour, Iwona Romek, who said he was also married and a father.
"He seemed like a normal family man who liked to take care of his garden."
The so-called Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but there was no independent evidence to suggest the claim was credible.
Police said Masood was inspired by international terrorism, but have not revealed whether their investigation has identified a motive, or whether any of his associates, family or friends knew of his intentions to carry out the deadly attack.
Topics: terrorism, england, united-kingdom
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