The key facts

  • Anthony Williams, 33, denies 10 counts of attempted murder on the train and four more in Peterborough and London
  • Witness Jonathan Gjoshe said that after being wounded he warned passengers, but some kept sitting, 'thinking it was a joke'
  • The court noted: the fact of the attack itself is not disputed — the jurors must decide whether there was intent to kill

Passenger testimony at Cambridge Crown Court

The trial of 33-year-old Anthony Williams from Peterborough is continuing at Cambridge Crown Court. He is accused of attacking passengers on an LNER train travelling from York to London King's Cross station. According to BBC News, the attack took place on 1 November last year, after the train had left Peterborough, and ended with an unscheduled stop at Huntingdon (Cambridgeshire). Jurors were shown CCTV footage from the scene.

What witnesses said

According to a witness, the first person injured was Jonathan Gjoshe. He said he was in carriage J, looking at his phone, and at first mistook Williams for an acquaintance. The knife strike, as he described it, was 'slow' and therefore strange; he realised what had happened when he felt shock. With a bloodied hand, he walked through the carriage shouting 'I've been stabbed, run', but, in his words, some passengers kept sitting, 'thinking it was a joke'. Gjoshe spent four days in hospital and, as he recounted, asked staff: 'Am I going to die today or not?'

Other incidents and the charges

Another passenger from the same carriage, Sachin Balakrishnan, described the chaos: screams, people jumping over seats, a man with a 'large knife' who 'was saying something incoherent'. He said he ran, 'there was nowhere to run, nowhere was safe', and felt pain in his right arm. 73-year-old David Presland, in his words, was stabbed while kneeling on the floor and thought he was going to die. Jurors also saw footage of the attack on Scott Green, who was travelling with a cockapoo dog named Poppy: he tried to grab the knife, and the dog, he said, 'went into attack mode', which he believes confused the attacker; then a woman pulled him into the toilet. Williams is also accused of attempting to murder Raza Aslam, Scott Bletcher, Stephen Crean, Kevin Dilly, Michael Puffett and Samir Zitouni on the same train. The prosecution additionally alleges that on 31 October he tried to kill three people in Peterborough, and in the early hours of 1 November — a teenager on a DLR train in east London. The court framed the key question of the trial as follows: the fact of the attacks themselves is not disputed — the jurors must decide whether Williams intended to kill. Williams denies all charges; the trial continues.

CCTV still of the London-bound LNER train. Anthony Williams, dressed in a black cap and black jacket, is holding a blurred knife in the walkway of a near empty carriage.Image source, PA/British Transport Police
Image caption,

Jurors have been shown CCTV footage of the attack

Emergency services personnel, wearing protective gear and many in high-visibility clothing, near an Azuma train, painted white, red and yellow. 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

CCTV image of a man holding a knife on a docklands light railway train. He is wearing dark clothing and the knife is in his right hand.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.