Suspect May Have Been on Days-Long Knife Spree Leading Up to England Train Attack Without Being Caught

Police are investigating whether the man they arrested over the mass stabbing aboard a high speed train at the weekend may have been behind several other incidents, including a further stabbing on a different railway.

32-year-old Anthony Williams, initially described by police as a “Black British national” appeared at Peterborough Magistrate’s Court on Monday, having been charged with 11 counts of attempted murder, one count of actual bodily harm and two counts of possession of a bladed article. The charges relate to two separate he is accused of having launched attacks; the mass-casualty stabbing onboard a London-bound train on Saturday evening, and a further stabbing on a London light rail platform earlier the same day.

Police are now investigating whether the alleged attacker may have also been behind a string of other attacks and incidents in the days leading up to the two railway stabbings, including a knife being brandished twice at a barber’s shop in Peterborough on Friday, and the stabbing of a 14-year-old in Peterborough town centre.

In those three instances, the police were called each time but were unable to identify a suspect. Officers did not physically respond to the first incident of a knife being drawn at a barber’s shop at all, and in the case at the second, it took them 18 minutes to arrive, by which time the suspect had fled. Cambridgeshire police have referred themselves to the Independent Office of Police Conduct for investigation, as is normal routine for such outcomes.

The government has said suspect Williams was not previously known to counter terror police or the security services, and that the railway attack, where he is alleged to walked through the carriages of the train while stabbing members of the public is not being treated as a terrorist attack. 10 people were injured onboard, some critically. The most seriously injured is stated to be a member of railway staff who attempted to confront the knifeman.

Witnesses have now claimed that the attacker asked one person “do you want to die” before stabbing them, and that he told another “the devil is not going to win”. Police were able to respond to the attack with astonishing speed, with armed officers at the train within minutes. Whether by accident or design, the train was brought to a stop at Huntington railway station, which is just yards away from the headquarters of Cambridgeshire police.