The key facts

  • Anthony Williams, 33, denies 14 counts of attempted murder
  • A day before the attack, train passengers reported his strange behaviour to British Transport Police
  • What is in question is not the fact of the attack but the intent to kill — this is what the jury must decide

What is happening in court

The trial of 33-year-old Anthony Williams from Peterborough is continuing at Cambridge Crown Court. He is accused of attempting to murder ten people on a train bound for London that made an emergency stop at Huntingdon on 1 November last year. As BBC News reports, citing evidence given in court, Williams denies 14 counts of attempted murder, relating both to the events on the train and to incidents the day before in Peterborough and London.

Warning signs the day before

A key new detail in the trial: passengers had already noticed Williams's behaviour a day before the attack. According to passenger Keira Lee-Oakman, whose statement was read out to the jury, the man walked through the carriages, muttered to himself, repeated the words 'boom and power' and 'I haven't got it', mentioned the devil and behaved aggressively and intimidatingly — she sent a message to British Transport Police directly from the train. Police attended Stevenage station, but the man went down onto the tracks, and officers deemed it unsafe to pursue him further.

What other passengers said

Other witnesses described a similar picture. Abigail Harrison-Evans said the man played 'creepy Halloween music' on his phone, kept a black rucksack beside him, grabbed it saying 'I'm going to do it' and then said 'I cannot do it'; her first impression was that he was suffering from a mental disorder. Her partner Ethan Daniels, according to testimony, heard him say: 'I am the baddest, no-one is as bad as me' — this phrase was used in the headline of the BBC report.

The full scope of the charges

In addition to the ten people on the train between Peterborough and Huntingdon (Reza Aslam, Sachin Balakrishnan, Scott Bletcher, Stephen Crean, Kevin Deeley, Jonathan Gjoshe, Scott Green, Michael Puffett, David Presland and Samir Zitouni), Williams is charged with attempting to murder three people in Peterborough on the evening of 31 October and a teenager on a Docklands Light Railway train in east London in the early hours of 1 November. The court has already heard testimony from the victims: according to BBC reports, the injured teenager said the attacker seemed to him to be 'not in his right mind', and surveillance cameras captured how the attack was stopped with the help of a frying pan.

The key question for the jury

Importantly, the fact of the attacks themselves was not disputed in court: the jury must decide whether Williams intended to kill the victims. It is this answer that determines the classification — attempted murder or lesser offences. The trial continues.

A man in dark clothing and black woolly hat carries a small black bag under his right arm. He is outside glass doors at a railway station and is walking past yellow cones that say 'CAUTION WET FLOOR' on them.Image source, British Transport Police
Image caption,

The jury has been shown this image of Anthony Williams at Peterborough Railway Station, where he boarded trains on 31 October and 1 November

Emergency services personnel, wearing protective gear and many in high-visibility clothing, near an Azuma train. They are standing on the platform to the left of the train, which has its front lights on.Image source, Press Association
Image caption,

Anthony Williams is accused of attempting to murder 10 people on the train that made an unscheduled stop at Huntingdon

A man in dark clothing and black woolly hat carries a small black bag under his right arm. He is outside glass doors at a railway station and is walking past yellow cones that say 'CAUTION WET FLOOR' on them.A CCTV image of Anthony Williams on a train. He is wearing a dark jacket and has his hood up.A man in dark clothing and black woolly hat carries a small black bag under his right arm. He is outside glass doors at a railway station and is walking past yellow cones that say 'CAUTION WET FLOOR' on them.