Jurors Hear Witnesses Describe Threats, Mumbled Rants and Rising Fear on the Train
A London-bound train became the setting for a fast-moving violent episode in which passengers said they heard threats, saw erratic behavior and feared an attack before the stabbing began. In Cambridge Crown Court, jurors heard that Anthony Williams said, “I am the baddest, no-one is as bad as me,” while another passenger described him as aggressive, intimidating and unsafe to be near.
The case turns on intent as much as action. Williams, 33, of Langford Road in Peterborough, denies 14 counts of attempted murder tied to events on the train and earlier incidents in Peterborough and London.
Passenger Accounts Mapped a Sequence of Escalation
The testimony presented a picture of a man moving through carriages, muttering to himself and repeating phrases that unsettled the people around him. One passenger, Keirah Lee-Oakman, said he entered the train, sat down and appeared to be talking and mumbling to himself before pacing the carriages and saying “boom and power.” She also recalled hearing him repeat “I haven’t got it” and refer to the devil.
Her account mattered because it placed language, movement and posture together in a single escalating pattern. On a crowded train, where strangers are already confined in close quarters, erratic speech and repeated references to violence or evil can trigger alarm long before any physical assault begins. Lee-Oakman told jurors she felt unsafe and texted British Transport Police while the train was still moving.
A second passenger, Abbie Harrison-Evans, gave a similarly uneasy description. She said a male was shouting from the front of the train and playing spooky Halloween music on his phone. Her first impression was that he may have been suffering from a mental condition, and she sent a Snapchat message asking whether they were going to be attacked.
Those details are not merely dramatic courtroom color. They form the behavioral backdrop against which the prosecution must persuade jurors that the alleged violence was not random noise and confusion, but a sequence of actions with a lethal purpose.
Emergency Stop at Huntingdon Followed a Wider Police Search
Police were first drawn to the situation after a passenger texted British Transport Police about a male behaving erratically the night before the train attack. Officers attended Stevenage station, but the man dropped down onto the tracks and police eventually judged it unsafe to keep following him.
The court also heard that the evening before the Huntingdon attack, Williams was accused of trying to kill three people in Peterborough. Later that night he boarded a train from Peterborough railway station toward London. The jury has seen an image of him at Peterborough Railway Station on 31 October and 1 November, when he boarded trains that would later become central to the case.
The trial has now moved from the broad outline of disorder into specific allegations of attempted murder. Williams is accused of trying to kill 10 people on the London-bound train that made an emergency stop in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, on 1 November last year. The prosecution says he also attempted to murder Isaiah Idris on a Docklands Light Railway train in London in the early hours of the same day.
A Face Cut, Blood Dripping, and an Alleged Second Attempt
Idris’ evidence brought the London incident into sharp focus. In a video recorded interview played to jurors, he said the attack came within seconds of the train starting to move. “Only a couple of seconds after the train started moving, he sliced my face,” he said. At first, he felt nothing. Then he saw blood dripping down his face.
He told jurors the man repeatedly asked, “are you beefing the devil?”, and tried to attack him again before Idris blocked him with his hand. When the train stopped and the doors opened, Idris said the man turned and ran away.
The evidence paints a pattern of sudden assault coupled with strange, intimidating questioning. In court, the central issue is not whether violence occurred. It is whether the prosecution can prove intent to kill, a threshold that demands more than proof of injury or fear. In criminal law, that distinction separates a serious assault from one of the gravest allegations a defendant can face.
Multiple Alleged Victims, One Central Question of Intent
On the Huntingdon train, 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. The court heard that passengers saw him keeping a black rucksack on the seat beside him and repeatedly grabbing it while saying, “I’m going to do it.” Harrison-Evans said it looked as though he was reaching inside the bag.
That testimony is especially important because it goes to preparation as well as behavior. A concealed bag, repeated verbal threats and a hand reaching repeatedly toward the same object can reasonably alarm witnesses who have no way of knowing what comes next. On a train, where escape routes are limited and every movement is visible to the people nearby, those signs can turn a routine journey into a crisis within moments.
Jurors were also told that after police arrived at Stevenage station, the male dropped onto the tracks and officers eventually stopped pursuing him because continuing was unsafe. That detail captures the difficulty officers faced in trying to manage a volatile, fast-moving public order incident in a transport environment not designed for confrontation.
What the Trial Now Has to Prove
The defense position is straightforward on one point: Williams denies the 14 attempted murder counts. The prosecution must therefore prove beyond reasonable doubt that he intended to kill the named individuals, not merely frighten, injure or lash out in a chaotic episode. In cases like this, intent often has to be reconstructed from words, movements, choice of weapon and the nature of the attack itself.
The trial continues, and the jury still has to weigh the credibility of each account against the legal test for attempted murder. For now, the evidence already heard leaves a stark record of public fear, repeated threats and a series of alleged attacks across trains and stations in more than one location.