The key facts

  • Stephen Crean described the struggle with Williams and the 999 call from the locked toilet
  • Williams denies 10 counts of attempted murder on the train and four more in Peterborough and London
  • The dispute is not over whether the attack happened, but over intent to kill

Testimony of a fan who grappled with the attacker

The trial of 33-year-old Anthony Williams from Peterborough continues at Cambridge Crown Court. According to the prosecution, on 1 November last year he attacked passengers with a knife on an LNER train travelling from York to London King's Cross; the train had to make an unscheduled stop at Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire. This was reported by BBC News.

“He was on a mission”

The key witness that day was Stephen Crean — a Nottingham Forest fan who tried to stop the attacker. In a video-recorded interview shown to the jury, he said he had deliberately chosen a carriage next to the buffet car and bought a £6 combo meal there. After his snack, a girl ran past him shouting about a “man with a knife, a big knife”.

The struggle and the 999 call

According to Crean, when the carriage doors opened, Williams asked him: “Do you want to die?” — and pulled out “a big kitchen knife from somewhere”. Passengers managed to shut the buffet door, after which Crean went at the attacker to “stop him from using the knife”. In the ensuing struggle, which he compared to dancing (“we were tumbling all over the carriage”), Crean's fingers were cut, and Williams “twisted and turned” the knife. The witness's phone fell out, and Williams, he said, told him: “Take your phone.” Crean then locked himself in the toilet, showed the attacker his middle finger and, for the first time in his life, called 999, coming out only when he heard police radios. About Williams's condition, he said: “He looked normal, he was just on a mission, he didn't look angry.”

The charges and the point of dispute

Williams denies 10 counts of attempted murder on the train — the intended victims, according to the prosecution, were Raza Aslam, Sachin Balakrishnan, Scott Bletcher, Kevin Dilly, Scott Green, Jonathan Gosh, Michael Puffett, David Presland and Samir Zitouni, as well as Crean himself. He is also charged with four attempted murders in earlier incidents: three people in Peterborough on 31 October and a teenager on a DLR train in east London in the early hours of 1 November. The court has already heard from five alleged victims and viewed CCTV footage. A key feature of the trial: the fact of the attack itself is not in question — the jury must decide whether Williams intended to kill. 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, Press Association/British Transport Police
Image caption,

Jurors have been shown CCTV footage of the attacks on the train

Stephen Crean, with short dark hair, sat on a sofa and wearing a blue Nottingham Forest football shirt. He has his left hand bandaged. He is looking off to the left of the camera.Image source, Press Association
Image caption,

Stephen Crean, who had his left hand bandaged in his interview video, said he “went for that knife”

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.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.