Huntingdon train attack driver 'heard someone screaming' about knifeman stabbing people

The driver of a London-bound train on which 10 people were stabbed told a court he "heard someone screaming" through a door microphone that a knifeman was attacking people. 

Anthony Williams, 33, has denied 14 counts of attempted murder, including 10 linked to the high-speed service from Doncaster on 1 November last year.

Andrew Johnson brought the LNER train to an unscheduled stop at Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, after asking signallers to switch the service to the slow line.

He told Cambridge Crown Court the service was travelling at 122mph around Abbots Ripton when an alarm sounded, "which indicated someone was trying to open one of the passenger doors".

Mr Johnson said he had five seconds to override the alarm, and, on the camera, "could see the door, but no one was there at that time".

Mr Johnson said that if he did nothing to override the alarm, "it would bring the train to a stop - it would take a mile, mile-and-a-half, but I wouldn't be able to get going again".

He said after attempting to speak to whoever activated the alarm over a loudspeaker, without getting a reply, "I thought, 'Saturday night, someone's messing around'."

But later, while asking a staff member to reset the alarm, Mr Johnson said that he "heard someone screaming 'there's a knifeman stabbing people'."

He said it had been a "kind of a three-way conversation" between the member of on-board staff at the back of the train and the still-active door microphone. He described the scream as "terrifying".

Mr Johnson said the next station on the slow line was Huntingdon, and he decided to move the train from the fast line, having "probably about 10 seconds" to make the decision.

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Asked by prosecutor Christopher Paxton KC why he opted for the slow line, Mr Johnson said that "it just came instinctively".

The driver said an in-built safety feature meant that "if I leave my seat, the train stops".

"My mind was completely focused on one thing, and that was getting the train to Huntingdon," he said.

James Tomlinson, a passenger on the train, said in a video-recorded police interview played to jurors on Tuesday that there was a "guy shouting, 'I've got a knife, I'm not afraid to use it, we're all going to die today'".

"It was a deep voice and you could tell he meant it," Mr Tomlinson said.

In a video interview, passenger Alice Ward said she saw a "conga of people running through" the carriage before hearing someone shout, "he's got a knife, someone's been stabbed in the next carriage".

She said: "The gentleman that was serving the food came out with two pans and said, 'we need to stick together'."

Ms Ward said the knifeman "looked completely deranged", and "had a bottle of like a cherry tonic, Magnum".

She said he was "shouting a lot, something along the lines of, 'why are you trying to kill me', but obviously that wasn't the case".

Williams has also denied the attempted murders of three people in Peterborough on 31 October, and of a 17-year-old boy at Pontoon Dock DLR station in London in the early hours of 1 November.

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.

The trial continues.

(c) Sky News 2026: Huntingdon train attack driver 'heard someone screaming' about knifeman stabbing people