Train knifeman said ‘who’s man enough to take me on’, court told

Passenger Raza Aslam said train staff member Samir Zitouni, who tried to fend off knifeman Anthony Williams, was “cut up like he’s been fighting with Wolverine” in a video-recorded police interview played to jurors at Cambridge Crown Court.

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

Mr Aslam said somebody said “there’s a guy stabbing everyone”, and “I looked and there was so many different people of all backgrounds, they were terrified”.

He said people were trying to push along the train and he helped a mother and child, who locked themselves in a toilet.

He said he “couldn’t live with the fact I was hiding in the toilet and something was happening outside”, so stayed outside in the carriage and was given a frying pan from a canteen area.

A man he called “Sam”, train staff member Samir Zitouni, “was rushing backwards and forwards like a busy beaver trying to get different things” like trolleys and pans, Mr Aslam said.

He said that when Williams appeared “I remember him looking at me and seeing if I was hiding something behind my back”.

Mr Aslam said he “didn’t anticipate that he was strategically minded” and “before I even knew it I feel the knife stabbing – I couldn’t believe it was that fast”.

He described it as a “surgical strike” and that Williams was “not out of breath, he’s got no sweat on his brow”.

“He’s the most calmest person I’ve ever met,” he said.

He said he remembered “Sam and that other guy started chucking stuff” and said “all hell’s broken loose”.

He said that “my heart wouldn’t let me leave Sam because he saved me”.

He said the men were “chucking everything at him (Williams)” and he believed they even threw a woman’s zimmer frame at him.

Mr Aslam said that Williams had the “greatest delight on his face – I saw his eyes expand with pleasure”.

“If he had wanted he could have stabbed all of us in the back afterwards, he had plenty of opportunity and he didn’t,” he said.

He said in interview: “Is this man possessed or something?

“He wasn’t out of breath, he was calm.”

“He just walk up casually, stand at the door and said ‘who is man enough to take me on?,” said Mr Aslam.

Williams denies attempting to murder 10 people on the London-bound service that was stopped in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, 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.

Judge Mr Justice Calver earlier told jurors at Cambridge Crown Court that whether Williams carried out the attacks is not in question, but they must consider whether he intended to kill.

Another passenger stabbed by Williams, Michael Paffett, said in a video-recorded interview that people knocked a catering trolley onto its side to “act like a barrier” and a man “lobs a full-size toaster at the guy”.

Jurors were played mobile phone footage taken by a passenger on the train, before Williams reached their carriage, in which a person says “I don’t think he’s going to come and stab everybody but who knows”.

In the video, someone asks: “Is he coming this way?”

In CCTV from the train, Williams is seen swigging from a bottle and walking along a carriage with a knife in his hand.

In a second mobile phone clip, where the screen is black, audio is heard of a man saying “I’ve been stabbed – I’m bleeding heavily” and there is a shout of “oh my God”.

Nottingham Forest fan Stephen Crean said in an interview played in court that he tried to stop 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.

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.

The trial continues.