Train passengers fled “in sheer terror” from a knife attacker who asked one victim “do you want to die?”, a trial has heard.
Jurors were shown CCTV footage of passenger Stephen Crean attempting to disarm Anthony Williams during the attack on the Doncaster to King’s Cross train at Huntingdon on 1 November last year.
Opening the prosecution case at Cambridge Crown Court, Christopher Paxton KC said that of those on the train “some stood tall, to protect others trying to de-escalate his rampage”.
Williams, 33, is accused of attempting to murder 10 train passengers and staff. He is also accused of trying to kill three people in Peterborough the day before and then a boy at a London railway station.
Williams, of Langford Road in Peterborough, denies 14 counts of attempted murder.
He is accused of attempting to murder Jonathan Gjoshe, Sachin Balakrishnan, David Presland, Scott Bletcher, Scott Green, Kevin Deely, Stephen Crean, Raza Aslam, Michael Paffett and Samir Zitouni on the train between Peterborough and Huntingdon on that Saturday evening.
He is also accused of attempting to murder a 14-year-old boy and Dawid Taborski on a footbridge near Henry Penn Walk in Peterborough on 31 October, and William Ogelby at Railworld car park in the city shortly afterwards.
Williams was then seen swigging from a bottle of alcohol outside Ritzy Barber Shop in Fletton in Peterborough, before going into the shop brandishing a knife.
The jury heard he then travelled to east London, where he stabbed a 17-year-old on a Docklands Light Railway train at Pontoon Dock in Silvertown in the early hours of 1 November.
During that attack, jurors were told a witness said she heard the defendant repeatedly say: “Are you trying to beef with the devil?”