Man charged over UK train stabbing attack

A 32-year-old man was charged on Monday with 10 counts of attempted murder following a mass stabbing on a London-bound high-speed train on Saturday evening.

Anthony Williams, 32, a British man from Peterborough, was arrested soon after the attack, which took place on the Doncaster to London King's Cross rail service.

Police said on Monday the same man has also been charged with another count of attempted murder, and possession of a bladed article, in connection with a separate incident on a London train in the early hours of Saturday.

Officers said another man who had also initially been detained had been released and was not involved. A total 11 people were injured in the attack, five of whom were still in hospital on Monday, reported the BBC.

A rail worker who confronted the knife-wielding attacker is being hailed as a hero who "undoubtedly saved many lives".

The wounded worker, an employee of London North Eastern Railway, the operator that runs services on the United Kingdom's East Coast Main Line, remains in a critical but stable condition at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge.

Witnesses of the attack said a man dressed in black boarded the train at Peterborough, in eastern England, and began stabbing passengers shortly after it departed at 7:30 pm.

Families and football supporters were among those caught up in the 14-minute attack, reported The Times newspaper. One man was reportedly injured while shielding a woman and a young child. Some passengers barricaded themselves in toilets, while others grabbed items to defend themselves.

UK Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said the suspect was not known to security services, and that the injured train worker was a hero who had "saved lives".

"He went to work on Saturday morning to do his job and he left work a hero," she told Times Radio. "I know that the British Transport Police have reviewed CCTV footage from what happened on the train and he literally put himself in harm's way and so there will be people who are alive today because of his actions."

The train made an emergency stop at Huntingdon, near Cambridge, at 7:44 pm thanks to driver Andrew Johnson's quick thinking. Johnson, reported to have served 17 years in the Royal Navy, including deployment to Iraq in 2003, said: "I was only doing my job. It was my colleague who is in hospital who was the brave one."

Dean McFarlane, a London Underground station supervisor who spoke to Johnson soon after the train stopped, said: "The emergency alarm had been pulled and people were banging on the door saying passengers were being attacked. It was 100 percent the right thing. If he had stopped in the middle of nowhere, the attack would have continued. There would be no way to escape or anyone to help. He is a hero."

Aslef union official Nigel Roebuck said the driver drew on his "knowledge and calmness to make calculated decisions to get the train to a place it could be easily accessed".

Deputy Chief Constable Stuart Cundy, from British Transport Police, praised the wounded rail worker, saying: "(Their) actions …were nothing short of heroic and undoubtedly saved people's lives."