Train attacker said 'I am the baddest', trial hears

Published2 November 2026, 13:00 GMT

A man accused of a mass train stabbing was heard saying "I am the baddest, no-one is as bad as me", on a different train the day before the attack, a court has heard.

Anthony Williams is accused of attempting to murder 10 people on a London-bound train which had to make an emergency stop in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire on 1 November last year.

A passenger texted the British Transport Police reporting a male behaving erratically the night before, Cambridge Crown Court heard.

Williams, 33, of Langford Road in Peterborough, denies 14 counts of attempted murder over events on the train, and beforehand in Peterborough and London.

He is accused of trying to kill three people in Peterborough during the evening of 31 October. Later that night he boarded a train from the city's railway station, headed towards London.

In a statement read to jurors, another passenger, Keirah Lee-Oakman, said a male entered the train, sat down and "appeared to be talking and mumbling to himself".

She said he began walking up and down the carriages stating "boom and power", repeatedly saying things like "I haven't got it" as well as referencing the devil, jurors were told.

Lee-Oakman said he was "acting in an aggressive and intimidating manner... I felt unsafe" and while on the train she sent a text to the British Transport Police.

Jurors heard police officers attended Stevenage station but the male dropped down on to the tracks and officers eventually deemed it unsafe to continue following him.

Abbie Harrison-Evans was on the train with her partner Ethan Daniels. She said there was a "male shouting from the front of the train" who was "playing spooky Halloween music on his phone".

His behaviour was "erratic" and her "first impression was he was suffering from a mental condition", the court heard.

She sent a Snapchat to Daniels stating "we going to get attacked or what?".

Harrison-Evans said Williams had a black rucksack on the seat next to him and "kept grabbing it and saying 'I'm going to do it'."

"It looked like he was reaching for something inside the black rucksack," she said.

The court heard Williams said "I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it", followed by "I cannot do it", and she had a "feeling he was going to hurt us".

Daniels said he heard the man state: "I am the baddest, no-one is as bad as me."

Williams is accused of attempting to murder Raza Aslam, Sachin Balakrishnan, Scott Bletcher, Stephen Crean, Kevin Deely, Jonathan Gjoshe, Scott Green, Michael Paffett, David Presland and Samir Zitouni on the London-bound train between Peterborough and Huntingdon on 1 November.

As well as the attacks in Peterborough, he is accused of attempting to murder a teenager on a Docklands Light Railway train in east London in the early hours of 1 November.

The trial has been told that whether Williams carried out the attacks is not in question, but jurors must consider whether he intended to kill those individuals.

The trial continues.

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HM Courts and Tribunals Service