Knifeman who stabbed 10 people on a train was ‘on a mission’, court told
A football fan who tussled with a knifeman who stabbed him and nine others on a London-bound train that was stopped at Huntingdon said his attacker had been “on a mission”, a court heard.
Nottingham Forest fan Stephen Crean was on the LNER service when a girl ran past him and said “man with a knife, big knife” and screamed, he said in a police interview video played to jurors.
In the footage, played at Cambridge Crown Court, Mr Crean said he tried to stop knifeman Anthony Williams from getting to a buffet car where there were more people.
“I went towards him away from that buffet car then all of a sudden he looked at me and said to me, as I will never forget, he said ‘do you want to die?’, and he pulled out a blade from nowhere,” he said.
He said people were “struggling to get the buffet door shut” then when he heard it click shut he moved towards Williams on November 1 last year.
Mr Crean, who had his left hand bandaged in his interview video, said he “went for that knife”.
He said Williams had been “on a mission” then it was “like Come Dancing, it was all over the place”.
He said his fingers were cut and Williams was “twisting and turning” the knife.
“We had a bit of a tussle,” Mr Crean said, with jurors played CCTV from the train of the incident.
Mr Crean said he “went down, my phone went flying”.
He said he later went into a toilet and locked the door, adding: “I smiled, then middle-fingered him then closed the door.”
He said he had “wanted to sort him out to try and stop him because I knew he wanted to get in that buffet car”.
He said he dialled 999 and police told him they were on their way.
Mr Crean said Williams “never gave the game away” and “didn’t say why this or that”.
“I became like a barricade to him and that’s it,” he said.
Mr Crean said of the buffet car door: “I heard it click, happy days, I went towards him (Williams)”.
He said it “probably shocked him (Williams) that I’ve gone for him first”.
He said his intention had been “to stop him, stop him from using that knife, that was the whole point of it”.
Asked about how Williams appeared, Mr Crean said “100% he was fine, he looked normal, he was just on a mission, he didn’t seem angry”.
Williams denies attempting to murder 10 people on the London-bound service that was stopped in Huntingdon, on November 1 last year.
He also denies the attempted murders of three people in Peterborough on October 31 and of a 17-year-old boy at Pontoon Dock DLR station in London in the early hours of November 1.
The trial continues.