Zimmer frame thrown at train attacker, jury hears

Published5 November 2026, 12:41 GMT

Passengers were "chucking everything" including a toaster and a woman's Zimmer frame at a man who was stabbing people on a busy train, a court has heard.

Anthony Williams stabbed 10 people on the train which made an unscheduled stop in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, on 1 November last year.

One of the victims, Raza Aslam, told Cambridge Crown Court he was handed a frying pan to defend himself as "all hell's broken loose".

Williams, 33, of Langford Road in Peterborough, denies 10 counts of attempted murder, and four other alleged attempted murders in earlier incidents in Peterborough and London.

Jurors have been watching video interviews with the stabbing victims, who were attacked on the York to London King's Cross LNER service.

Aslam said that not long after the train left Peterborough "someone just burst through the back door" of the carriage he was in and said "everybody run".

He said he helped a mother and child into a toilet, which they locked themselves in, as he remained in the carriage.

Aslam described how train staff member Samir Zitouni "was rushing backwards and forwards like a busy beaver trying to get different things" like trolleys and pans to defend the passengers.

Williams then appeared, "seeing if I was hiding something behind my back", Aslam recalled, before he felt "the knife stabbing".

He remembered Zitouni and another man "chucking stuff" - including a woman's Zimmer frame - and said the staff member had "saved me".

Williams was the "calmest person I've ever met", he said, adding: "If he had wanted he could have stabbed all of us in the back afterwards, he had plenty of opportunity and he didn't."

In Court: Huntingdon Train Attack

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Another stabbing victim, Michael Paffett, said people knocked a catering trolley on to its side to "act like a barrier" and a man threw "a full-size toaster at the guy".

Jurors also listened to the account of football fan Stephen Crean, who was by a door of the buffet car, having just bought a £6 meal deal.

Crean said Williams asked him, "Do you want to die?", as he "pulled out a blade from nowhere".

He said people were "struggling to get the buffet door shut", but when he "heard it click, happy days, then I went towards him [Williams]".

Crean, who was wearing his Nottingham Forest clothing, said he grappled with Williams to "stop him" using the knife, which was "like Come Dancing, we were all over the place".

He said his fingers were cut and Williams was "twisting and turning" the knife.

Crean then managed to call 999 from a locked toilet and said he only came out when he heard police.

Asked about how Williams appeared, Crean said: "100% he was fine, he looked normal, he was just on a mission, he didn't seem angry."

As well as arguing Williams was attempting to murder the 10 people on the train, prosecutors allege that on 31 October he tried to kill three people in Peterborough.

He is also charged with attempting to murder a teenager in the early hours of 1 November on a DLR train in east London.

Whether Williams carried out the attacks is not in question - the court has been told - but jurors must consider whether he intended to kill.

The trial continues.

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