Anthony Williams trial opens over Halloween weekend knife attacks in Cambridgeshire

Opening of the trial

Anthony Williams, 33, went on trial at Cambridge Crown Court, where prosecutors opened their case on Wednesday, 28 October 2026. He denies 14 counts of attempted murder. Ten of those counts concern passengers on an LNER train from Doncaster to London that made an emergency stop in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, on the evening of 1 November 2025. The other four concern attacks in Peterborough on 31 October 2025 and at Pontoon Dock DLR station in London in the early hours of 1 November. Williams is appearing by videolink from Rampton Hospital in Nottinghamshire rather than from the dock, a decision the judge, Mr Justice Calver, said would best ensure his effective participation and spare him a four-hour round trip to court. The jury consists of three women and nine men.

LNER train10

Peterborough3

Pontoon Dock DLR, London1

LNER train

10 counts

Peterborough

3 counts

Pontoon Dock DLR, London

1 counts

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The alleged attacks

Prosecutors say the attacks began on the evening of 31 October 2025 in Peterborough, when Williams stabbed a 14-year-old boy as the boy passed him on a footbridge near Henry Penn Walk. Williams then lunged with his knife at a second man on the same footbridge and later tried four times to stab a third man in the chest in the Railworld car park, the court heard. In the early hours of 1 November 2025 he approached a 17-year-old boy on the Docklands Light Railway at Pontoon Dock in London and knifed him in the face and hand. Later that evening, on the LNER service, he stabbed 10 people in what the court was told was a five-minute attack. Across the weekend, the prosecution says, he targeted 14 people in total across towns, cities and the rail network.

Describing events on the train, Christopher Paxton KC told the jury that some passengers put themselves at risk to shield strangers.

“The defendant brought terror which resulted in them fleeing and some fighting for their lives.”

Prosecutors also say a passenger who tried to wrest the knife from him was cut on the hand, head and lower back.

Intent and the guilty pleas

Williams has accepted that he carried out the stabbings, while contesting all 14 attempted murder counts. The judge, Mr Justice Calver, told jurors that they have to work out whether Williams meant to kill the people he stabbed, which is the prosecution's case. In his opening, Christopher Paxton KC said:

“He stabbed many, seeking to end their lives with deadly intention, striking out at them when they were defenceless and in fear.”

At a pre-trial hearing in October 2026, Williams entered guilty pleas to ten charges of wounding with intent linked to the train, along with wounding with intent of the man at Pontoon Dock and of the 14-year-old boy in Peterborough. He also pleaded guilty to a number of other offences. He continues to deny the 14 counts of attempted murder, and the trial continues at Cambridge Crown Court.