Man accused of train attack 'stabbed 14-year-old boy in Peterborough' court told
A man charged with attempting to murder a number of people on a train ‘stabbed a 14-year-old in the chest’ in Peterborough, a court has been told.
Anthony Williams is standing trial at Cambridge Crown Court following the knife attack on the train from Doncaster to London on November 1 last year.
The train pulled in at Huntingdon Station following the incident.
Williams, who appeared at court via videolink, accepts that he carried out the attack but denies all 14 counts of attempted murder.
The court has also been told of two incidents that occurred in Peterborough.
Williams shouted “are you two involved?” before producing a “zombie or Rambo-style knife” from his rucksack and stabbing a 14-year-old boy, the court was told.
Christopher Paxton KC told Cambridge Crown Court that the 14-year-old was walking with a friend across a footbridge near Henry Penn Walk in Peterborough when they saw who the 14-year-old described as a “random guy”.
The prosecutor said there was “no dispute” that the man was Williams, and Williams stabbed the 14-year-old in the chest and the boy and his friend “ran and hid in nearby bushes and it was then (the boy) realised he had been stabbed”.
The boy was treated in hospital for a single stab wound two to three centimetres to the left of his breastbone.
The 14-year-old was asked by police about what force he felt, and said “it was strong, like it pushed me back a little, he was using his full force, like his arm was fully stretched out”.
The boy’s friend told police the defendant, who he also did not know, had shouted “are you two involved?” and then “took his rucksack off, reached into the rucksack and pulled out a large knife which (he) said was a zombie or Rambo-style knife, approximately 10 inches in length”, Mr Paxton said.
The court was also told about another incident in Peterborough.
Jurors heard that Williams stood talking to himself and swigging from a bottle of alcohol outside a barber shop before going inside and brandishing a kitchen knife.
Prosecutor Christopher Paxton KC said the 33-year-old arrived outside Ritzy Barber Shop in Queen’s Walk in Peterborough on the evening of October 31 last year.
He said Williams “arrived outside the barber shop and stood there for a period of time talking to himself, swigging from a bottle of alcohol”.
He said the defendant “took out a knife from his rucksack” and “entered the barber shop brandishing the kitchen knife”.
“Quite naturally those inside drew back from the defendant after which he left the barber shop”, he said, adding to jurors that Williams had pleaded guilty to affray and possession of a knife over the incident which happened at around 7.25pm.
Williams, 33, who appeared at Cambridge Crown Court via videolink on Wednesday, denies 14 counts of attempted murder.
The trial continues.