An LNER worker reached for a frying pan in a desperate attempt to stop the alleged Huntingdon train attacker before he was stabbed, a court heard.
Samir Zitouni raised the pan at Anthony Williams, 33, as the defendant stood in a carriage doorway during what prosecutors described as a “rampage” aboard an LNER service travelling from Doncaster to London on November 1 last year.
Cambridge Crown Court heard accounts of panic, terror and remarkable bravery as Williams allegedly moved through several carriages, attacking passengers with a knife and leaving some with life-changing injuries.
Ten people were assaulted on the train, while four others had allegedly been targeted at separate locations from the previous day onwards.
Williams, 33, has admitted several offences, including attacking people with a knife and acting with “intent to cause them really serious harm”. However, he denies 14 charges of attempted murder.
Jurors were told that Mr Zitouni “jumped straight in” to help car delivery driver Raza Aslam after Williams stabbed him in the hand as he tried to intervene.
Mr Aslam was one of a small group of “big strong men” whom Mr Zitouni had asked to help restrain the attacker. But Williams stabbed him in the hand, causing an “immediate loss of energy in his arm”, the court heard.
Mr Aslam feared the defendant was about to “finish me off” when the train worker stepped in, hurling objects and trying to hold him back with a “defensive blockade” made from items including a frying pan and a toaster.
The intervention was followed by a “prolonged, persistent and brutal” attack that left him with grievous injuries.
Jurors heard that Mr Aslam realised something was wrong after hearing passengers speak about a man saying, “the devil won’t win”.
When he then saw Williams approaching, Mr Aslam later told police that the defendant had “the greatest delight on his face” and that he had seen “his eyes expand with pleasure”.
He continued: “I saw the contempt on his face… like a person who’s high. He was just loving every single moment… he loved seeing us in desperation.”
Scott Green was also spared by the intervention of his dog, Poppy, which turned on the “marauding” defendant, the court heard.
Chilling footage shows passengers fleeing as Williams moves through the train’s carriages on November 1 last year
Anthony Williams, 33, allegedly attacked ten people with a knife aboard an LNER service travelling from Doncaster to London
The defendant admits acting with “intent to cause them really serious harm” but denies 14 charges of attempted murder
Football supporter Stephen Crean showed similar courage, quietly telling people in the café bar to close the door before moving towards the defendant, the court was told.
Mr Crean had watched Nottingham Forest play before boarding the train at Grantham, Lincolnshire. He was on board when a young girl ran past screaming about a “man with a big knife”.
Prosecutor Chris Paxton KC said Mr Crean confronted Williams without a knife or any other weapon, looking the defendant directly in the eyes.
He added that Mr Crean would recall words from the encounter that he would never forget: “Do you want to die?”
In a police interview, Mr Crean said he ‘went for the knife… to stop him [Williams] because he’s on a mission’.
The hero was stabbed several times in the head, upper and lower back, fingers and hip during the ‘one-sided’ attack, before the defendant headed towards the buffet car.
He sought shelter in a toilet and made a 999 call which was played in court today.
A clearly shaken Mr Crean could be heard saying: ‘I’ve locked the door. I need help… I’m scared.’
The operator, who had asked for his location on the train and where he’d been stabbed, told him: ‘I know. We’ve got officers at the station now. We’re coming to you.’
David Presland, 73, ‘thought he was going to die’ when Williams approached him with the kitchen knife during what the prosecution has described as a ‘rampage’.
He had been knocked to the floor as he tried to get away and was on his hands and knees when ‘he stabbed me in the back’.
Footage played to the jury showed Mr Presland’s hand ‘come up in a pitiful and pleading fashion but the defendant continues his knife attack’.
The pensioner, who was left with wounds including one which broke a rib and punctured his lung, told police: ‘I thought I was going to die. I’m very lucky that I survived.’
Prosecutor Chris Paxton KC told the jury on the first day of the trial yesterday how there had been several examples of ‘extraordinary bravery’.
They heard today how Mr Presland was helped up by someone now believed to be another victim, Kevin Deely.
Mr Paxton said: ‘It is worth noting that, in this storm of violence and even when gripped by fear, many there on that train helped others.’
CCTV shows Williams advancing to where Stephen Crean was. He asked, ‘Do you want to die?’
Cambridge Crown Court has heard how Williams was drinking fortified tonic wine
Moving on to Mr Deely’s experience, the prosecutor said he shouted ‘you don’t have to do this’ at Williams and threw something at him ‘but didn’t think it connected’.
He grabbed the arm of ‘dazed’ Mr Presland and helped him move away.
It was only afterwards that Mr Deely realised he had been stabbed. He was treated for a wound to his scalp and another to his front abdominal wall that was nearly four inches deep and left his liver lacerated.
Scott Green had been watching something on his phone when he heard a commotion that he thought was a ‘scrap’ before feeling a ‘jab to his left side’ and saw Williams.
In a ‘desperate’ attempt to defend himself, he grabbed the knife – leaving him with damaged muscles and tendons. He also received a wound to his back.
Mr Paxton told the court Mr Green’s dog ‘started barking really aggressively and he’s [the defendant] just done a runner’.
‘It seems that Poppy the dog, for Mr Green at least, saved the day and sent the defendant running off,’ the prosecutor continued.
‘You will hear that in an unrelated incident the defendant had previously been bitten by a dog.’
Mr Green told police: ‘I remember running through the doors and it was literally just carnage.’
In what the prosecution said ‘reflects the humanity of others’ in spite of the circumstances, Mr Green described how a woman tried to make light of the grim situation as she ‘probably saved my life’ by bundling him into a toilet.
‘I’ll never forget she made a little joke. She was like ‘I don’t usually get in with men whom I just first met in a toilet’,’ he told officers.
The attack on train worker Mr Zitouni – who tried to stop Williams realising that a ‘disaster’ was unfolding – was described as ‘prolonged, persistent and brutal’.
Footage played in court from when the train eventually stopped showed him staggering from the train in his blood-soaked shirt before falling against a carriage and down onto the tracks.
His injuries from multiple wounds included both lungs being partially collapsed and an injured spleen.
He was taken to an intensive care unit at hospital where he had emergency treatment including four blood transfusions and chest drains and was put on a ventilator.
One passenger, James Tomlinson, is said to have heard the defendant say he had a knife and wasn’t afraid to use it, adding: ‘Everyone’s gonna die today.’
Michael Paffett, who suffered a deep wound to his face, told police he was going to leave the carriage after he was attacked but the defendant barked at him to stay where he was as ‘I don’t want you behind me’.
Mr Paxton said this showed that Williams ‘was functioning, responding and reactive to those around him’.
Mr Justice Calver told them they would have to decide whether Williams intended to kill the people he attacked, as the prosecution claim.
The Halloween rampage began when a 14-year-old boy, who can’t be named for legal reasons, was stabbed at a footbridge in Peterborough on October 31 last year.
Two men – Dawid Taborski and William Ogelby – were then attacked nearby although they avoided injury.
A 17-year-old was next stabbed in the face while travelling on the Docklands Light Railway in east London at Pontoon Dock in the early hours of November 1.
Williams then boarded an LNER train in his home town of Peterborough at 7.26pm that evening, clutching a ‘large kitchen knife and a bottle of fortified tonic wine’, where the other ten attempted murders allegedly took place.
Emergency services at the train, which made an unscheduled stop in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, where Williams was arrested
Describing passengers’ responses when the attack began, Mr Paxton said: ‘In sheer terror, the train passengers ran for their lives, hiding away in locked toilets, store cabinets, or under seats until many fleeing the defendant literally ran out of train.
‘Trapped and facing the defendant, who had been wielding, slashing out and stabbing with his knife, some sought to defend themselves and others on the train, showing extraordinary bravery in the face of the defendant’s onslaught, picking up frying pans or toasters to keep the defendant back, even trying to de-escalate the situation by asking him why was he doing it and telling him that they loved him.
‘But to no avail, the defendant continued his knife attack – slashing out and stabbing those around him.’
Horrifying footage played in court showed dozens of passengers wrapped in coats and hats fleeing down carriages as Williams approached them.
The bloody onslaught ended when the ‘quick thinking’ train driver hurriedly arranged an unscheduled stop at Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire and Williams was arrested.
The defendant, who is appearing in court via videolink from high-security Rampton Hospital in Nottinghamshire, was seen in bodycam footage being arrested by armed police who disabled him with a taser.
He was checked at hospital before being taken to a police station in Cambridge, although he was deemed not fit to be interviewed by officers.
While in custody, he punched a PC on the nose – leading to a charge of causing actual bodily harm, which the court heard he has admitted.
Mr Paxton told the jury that the defendant has ‘some mental health issues which may or may not become relevant during this trial’.
But he added: ‘There is no issue in this case as to who is responsible for these attacks. The defendant accepts he carried out these attacks.
‘The issue in this case, so far as the attempted murder counts are concerned, relates primarily to the defendant’s intention – whether he had an intention to kill as we, the prosecution, say he had.’
The trial continues.