Train stabbing suspect charged with additional attempted murder counts
CSI officers teams comb the trackside at Huntington railway station the morning after a man with a knife attacked 10 people on board a train traveling from Doncaster to London on Nov. 1. Anthony Williams, the man charged in the incident, was due in court again Wednesday to face two additional but separate attempted murder counts. File photo by Tayfun Salci/EPA
Nov. 19 (UPI) — A British man awaiting trial on charges of attempting to murder 10 people on board a high-speed train was due in court again on Wednesday after being charged with two further attempted murder counts.
Anthony Williams, 32, will appear before Peterborough magistrates to face charges he attempted to murder a man and a 14-year-old boy and attempted to seriously wound a third man in separate incidents in the city on Oct. 31.
West Midlands Chief Crown Prosecutor Siobhan Blake said she had also authorized a theft charge against Williams in relation to knives taken from a supermarket in Hertfordshire, a charge of carrying a knife and a charge of affray following an incident at a Peterborough barber shop on Oct. 31.
Williams would also be charged with assault following an alleged attack on a train en route to Peterborough from Herfordshire on Nov. 1, she said.
Blake said the decision to file the charges followed an extensive investigation by British Transport Police into incidents leading up to a stamping rampage aboard a London and North Eastern Railway train as it sped toward London on the evening of Nov. 1 in which 10 people were injured.
“Our prosecutors have worked to establish that there is sufficient evidence to bring this case to court and that it is in the public interest to pursue criminal proceedings,” she added.
BTP Deputy Chief Constable Stuart Cundy said the train stabbings incident “had also focused on other offenses previously reported to police, or identified by our investigation.”
“We have worked closely with our colleagues in Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire Police, alongside the Crown Prosecution Service, to bring these charges,” said Cundy.
Williams was arrested at Huntingdon station Nov. 1 after the train switched off the high-speed line onto a local district line to divert to the town, a move authorities believe prevented the attack from being much worse.
He is being held on remand pending his next court appearance in relation to the LNER train attack at Cambridge Crown Court on Dec. 1, where in addition to the 10 attempted murder counts he also faces an eleventh charge of attempting to murder a man at a Docklands Light Rail station in London and possessing a knife.
The Crown Prosecution Service said it would seek to tie all the cases together on a single docket at the hearing in Cambridge.