Train knifeman ‘did a runner’ after cockapoo dog barked aggressively, court told
A passenger who was injured during a mass stabbing on a London-bound train said the knifeman ran off after his cockapoo dog started barking aggressively, a court heard.
Video evidence from Scott Green was played on Wednesday to a jury at Cambridge Crown Court, where Anthony Williams is on trial for 14 counts of attempted murder.
Mr Green said he had his ear pods in and was sat in a window seat with his dog, Poppy, on his lap when he saw people running down the train.
CCTV footage played to jurors showed what Mr Green described as people “trying to run over each other down the aisle” before Williams, 33, entered carriage H and attacked him.
“He attacked me first then I saw the knife after,” said Mr Green.
“For some reason I just reacted.
“I think I kicked up at him and he’s then gone back a bit.”
He said he tried to “punch him but I remember it came over the top of me – he was a big lad”.
Mr Green said he tried to grab the knife but “the sharpness – I had to release it, I just couldn’t”.
“I don’t know if he saw the dog as the dog was on my lap, but as I pulled away… I must have yelped as she’s jumped up and started barking really aggressively,” he said.
“She’s only a cockapoo… she’s gone into attack mode.”
He said he thought the dog “startled” Williams as “for some reason he must have thought, ‘oh’ and he’s just done a runner”.
He said he did not know if he had been stabbed in the back or side but his hand was “literally pouring with blood” and “I knew I was in trouble”.
He said he went the opposite way down the train with his dog, away from Williams, and a woman “threw” him to safety in a toilet.
“She said, ‘you’re covered in blood on your side and your back’ and ‘you’ve been stabbed’,” he said.
He said that Williams “had nothing in his eyes”, adding that “there was no reaction, it was just deadpan, bare”.
He said it was like he was “in a different world”, and “like looking through you… it was soulless, no expression, no reaction”.
Williams denies attempting to murder 10 people on an LNER train from Doncaster to London 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.
In a video interview, passenger Kevin Deely said he remembered shouting to Williams “you don’t have to do this, you don’t have to do this”.
Mr Deely said he tried to shield a woman and later “picked up a piece of luggage and threw it at him or threw it to the floor in front of him”.
He said he recalled “running along with everybody else back through the carriage past the buffet car” and “always having a sense the assailant was behind”.
He said he helped an “elderly gentleman” called Dave, whom he later learned had been stabbed, and “got him up, kept my arm around him, dragged him in the direction we were going”.
“It started to dawn on me I’ve been stabbed but I’ve no recollection of the event itself,” Mr Deely said.
He said he was bleeding from his head and others “started passing clothing back to us” to stem the bleeding.
“I remember feeling I was going to die there,” Mr Deely said.
He said he thought the knifeman was “deliberately trying to hurt as many people as he could”.
He said Williams was speaking at points and “I do recall the gist of it as repeated short sentences along the lines of ‘you’re going to get it’, ‘you’ve asked for it’ or ‘this is how it’s going to be’, something along those lines”.
Another passenger, Jonathan Gjoshe, said in a video interview that he asked hospital staff “am I going to die today?” after he was stabbed in coach J of the LNER service on November 1 last year, jurors heard.
Mr Gjoshe said he was “drenched with blood, my whole arm” and called out to other passengers “guys, I’ve been stabbed, there’s a guy with a knife on the train, run”.
He said, “some people thought it was a joke” and others ran. He scrambled over seats and fled down the train, fearing Williams was chasing him, the court heard.
“It was like a movie, it was quite horrific,” he said.
Jurors also heard the video-recorded evidence of Sachin Balakrishnan, also a passenger in carriage J, who said he saw passengers scrambling over seats and running, and heard screaming, before he saw a man with a “big knife” who “was saying something but nothing meaningful”.
Mr Balakrishnan said he felt as if something was hitting him in the sides and fled down the train, not realising until later that he had been stabbed.
“This guy was running behind me, there was nowhere to go. Nowhere was safe,” he said.
“Everyone was running for their lives,” he told police.
Fellow passenger David Presland, then aged 73, was sitting at a train table looking at his phone, when he heard screaming and saw someone else getting stabbed.
He told police: “I got up… somebody pushed me down and stepped on my face, then my phone went, and that’s when I got stabbed”.
Mr Presland was stabbed in the back as he lay on the floor of the train, jurors heard, turning over to try to stop the attack during which he suffered multiple wounds.
“I thought I was going to die,” he said. “I’m lucky I survived.”
The trial continues.