After the shocking knife attack on a train traveling from Doncaster to London King’s Cross, eyewitnesses began recounting what happened that Saturday night. They said that for about fifteen minutes, an armed man moved through the carriages while passengers, panicked, tried to flee—some hiding in bathrooms, others crowding into the rear of the train, unsure where they could safely get off.
One of the victims—a railway employee whose courage, according to witnesses, helped save lives—is in critical condition. Initial suspicions of a terrorist attack were later dismissed by police; one suspect has been arrested.
The First Calls, the Stop in Huntingdon, and the Arrest of the Suspect
Emergency calls to 999 from passengers aboard the London North Eastern Railway train from Doncaster to King’s Cross began at 7:39 p.m. on Saturday—shortly after the train left Peterborough station in Cambridgeshire. As reporter Ben Quinn noted, the first warning for many passengers came over the loudspeaker: “We’re aware an incident has occurred. Please remain calm and stay safe,” one crew member announced.
About fifteen minutes after the incident began, the train made an emergency stop at Huntingdon station. Passengers rushed onto the platform, paramedics treated the injured, and police detained two suspects. One was soon released without charge; the other remains in custody on suspicion of attempted murder.
A forensic investigator photographs the scene on the platform beside the train at Huntingdon station.
AFP
Panic in the Carriages, Attempts to Hide, and a Confrontation with the Attacker
Joe, 24, was heading home after the Nottingham Forest vs. Manchester United match and texting friends about evening plans when people suddenly started running through the carriage, shouting, “Run, we have to run!”
“At first I didn’t even realize what was happening,” he told BBC. “Then I just dropped everything and ran with everyone else.” He said one thought haunted him: “What if the carriages run out? What if we reach the end of the train?”
Another passenger, Ollie Foster, described the ordeal in detail on social media. He wrote that while fleeing, he braced his hand on a seat and felt blood under his fingers. When the group reached the end of the train, they realized there was nowhere else to go. “Five of us were standing there, frantically looking for anything we could use to defend ourselves. One guy grabbed a bottle of Jack Daniel’s—I had nothing. It felt like ten minutes passed as I stared at the door, waiting for the attacker’s shadow to appear.” In an interview with BBC, he said he saw an elderly man shielding a young woman and sustaining wounds to the head and neck.
Deina Arnold, a project manager, told Mirror that she was sitting in carriage J, where the attack apparently began. In the panic, she lost sight of her partner. “I was running, looked back, and saw a man with a knife chasing me,” she said. “I fell and just whispered, ‘Please don’t kill me.’ His face suddenly changed, and he walked past me. He said, ‘The devil will not win.’”
Railway Worker in Critical Condition, Train Driver Brought Train Safely to a Stop
In a statement released early Sunday morning, the transport police said nine people had been taken to hospital with life-threatening injuries, and another suffered less serious wounds. By noon, Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge—the largest trauma center in eastern England—confirmed that two patients remained in critical condition.
By 6 p.m., five of the injured had been discharged. One of the remaining patients—a London North Eastern Railway employee who tried to stop the attacker—is, according to police, still in critical condition. “Investigators have reviewed CCTV footage,” police said. “His actions were truly heroic and undoubtedly saved many lives.”
The victims’ names have not yet been released. However, it is known that the train was driven by Andrew Johnson—a Royal Navy and Iraq War veteran. Colleagues said he was “deeply shaken but safe.” The train drivers’ union Aslef thanked him for his composure. Union representative Nigel Rebak noted: “He chose not to stop the train between stations, where rescuers would have struggled to reach it, but continued to Huntingdon, where help was already waiting.” Johnson himself told ITV News: “I was just doing my job. The real hero is my colleague who’s in hospital right now.”
Arrests, Witness Statements, and Police Decision to Disclose the Suspect’s Background
Immediately after the incident, two men—aged 32 and 35—were detained. The elder was later released without charge. According to the transport police, “officers who arrived at the scene were acting on a genuine misunderstanding that he was involved in the attack, but subsequent investigation confirmed that he was not.”
The second detainee, a resident of Peterborough who boarded the train there, remains in custody on suspicion of attempted murder. Police said a knife was recovered from him.
Taxi driver Viorel Turturica, who was waiting for passengers outside the station, told Daily Mail that he saw “a man dressed in black, holding a huge kitchen knife, run past my car at around 7:47 p.m. Almost immediately, the police arrived, and I heard him shouting at them, ‘Kill me, kill me, kill me.’ Then they tasered him, and when he fell, officers shouted, ‘Drop the weapon.’”
Amid online false claims that the attack was a terrorist act carried out by Asian Islamists, police stated that the suspect is “a Black British citizen,” while the second man, later released, is “a British national of Caribbean descent.” The statement reignited debate over the police’s new practice of disclosing the ethnic background of suspects in such cases.
The policy was introduced after the killing of three schoolgirls in Southport last summer, when misinformation on social media triggered mass riots. Members of the Reform and Conservative parties said police took too long to release information in the current case. Others, however, argued that law enforcement acted appropriately.
At the same time, some fear that such cases only reinforce the perception of ethnicity as a key factor. Former Metropolitan Police chief inspector Dal Babu told The Guardian that officers now have almost no choice: “They’ll be criticized either way—whether they disclose it or not. We’re in a situation where far-right groups are stoking racial tensions, and the police are forced to respond.”
Investigating Mental Health Issues and Debating Rising Violence
When the first reports of the attack came in, police invoked the “Plato” protocol—the national code used in response to a “marauding terror attack.” However, this status was soon lifted, with authorities stating there was “nothing to suggest this was a terrorist incident.”
Detectives are trying to determine the motive for the crime, focusing in particular on possible mental health issues of the suspect. They are also checking whether he was previously known to authorities.
In the wake of the incident, right-leaning politicians pointed to what they described as a rise in violent crime. The Cambridgeshire attack came just a week after a mass stabbing in Uxbridge that left 49-year-old Wayne Broadhurst dead and two others injured. Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch told BBC: “We’re seeing more and more violence on our streets. We cannot allow people to become victims of such crimes while simply going about their daily lives.”
Official statistics do not indicate whether random attacks have become more frequent. Overall, however, violent crime is now one-third lower than a decade ago and 75% below its mid-1990s peak. Knife crime has fallen over the past year, and NHS hospital admissions for sharp-object injuries are down 10% compared with 2024.