Eyewitnesses have been describing what they saw after the stabbing spree on a LNER train that has left 10 people seriously injured.
British Transport Police (BTP) received reports of multiple stabbings aboard Saturday’s 18:25 GMT service from Doncaster to London King’s Cross and the train made an unscheduled stop in Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire, having last stopped at Peterborough.
Olly Foster, a passenger on the train, told the he initially heard people shouting “run, run, there’s a guy literally stabbing everyone”, and believed it might have been a Halloween related prank.
He said within minutes, people started pushing through the carriage, and he noticed his hand was “covered in blood” as there was “blood all over the chair” he had leaned on.
An older man “blocked” the attacker from stabbing a younger girl, leaving him with a gash on his head and neck, Mr Foster said.
Passengers around him used jackets to try to staunch the bleeding.
He added that the only thing people in his carriage could use against the attacker was a bottle of whiskey, leaving them “praying” that he would not enter the carriage.
Although it lasted 10-15 minutes in total, Mr Foster says the incident “felt like forever”.
Wren Chambers was on the train that stopped at Huntingdon and first became aware that something was amiss when a man bolted down the carriage with a bloody arm, saying “they’ve got a knife, run”.
Ms Chambers and a friend ran to the front of the train and saw a man who had collapsed on the floor.
She said they felt “stressed and pretty scared” once they knew what was happening, but they were able to get off the train unharmed.
‘Get down, get down’
Other witnesses have spoken of seeing a man with a large knife and passengers hiding in the toilets, The Times reported.
One man told Sky News he believed he saw the suspect tasered before he was arrested.
He said: “Essentially, as they got closer to him, started shouting, like, ‘get down, get down’.
“He then was waving a knife, quite a large knife, and then they detained him.
“I think it was a Taser that got him down in the end.”
London Underground worker Dean McFarlane told the that he saw the train pull into Huntingdon railway station at 20:00 with a passenger bleeding.
He said that on arrival, he saw multiple people running down the platform bleeding, with one man in a white shirt “completely covered in blood”.
He said he grabbed people and told them to leave the station, and tried to assist passengers who he believed were having panic attacks.
