‘There was nowhere to go, I didn’t have a choice’: Hero opens up on moment he confronted Huntingdon knife attacker
The victim of a mass stabbing on a busy train in Huntingdon on Saturday said he “didn’t have much choice” but to fight back and recalled defending himself only with his fists.
Stephen Crean, 61, said he was returning home on the train from Doncaster to London when a young woman ran from inside the train carriage and shouted: “Knife, knife, there’s a man with a big knife.”
“There was nowhere to go. I didn’t have much of a choice,” he said, adding that the man with the knife asked him if he wanted to die before he felt the knife in his arm.
“He repeated this. Then I remember his knife sticking into my arm,” he said. Mr Crean said he was caught with the knife several times as he confronted his attacker on the train.
“Not a lot of people would probably do that,” he reflected on his decision to fight back. “But then you leave the people behind you defenseless.”
Having been described as a hero, he said: “It’s lovely that people are saying nice things about me.”
After the attack on Saturday night, 11 people were treated in hospital.
Suspect Anthony Williams, 32, appeared in court on 11 charges of attempted murder following the stabbing and a separate incident on London’s DLR in the early hours of Saturday.
British Transport Police said ten of the attempted murder cases were linked to the train attack, while the eleventh was linked to the incident in London.
Williams was also charged with one count of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and two counts of possession of a bladed article.
A train worker praised for protecting passengers remains in a “critical but stable” condition following the attack in Cambridgeshire.
Scunthorpe United said their player Jonathan Gjoshe was one of the victims of the attack, adding that he suffered “non-life-threatening injuries” but remained in hospital.
Speaking with a cast on one hand at his home in south-west London, Mr Crean said he was “caught up in my fingers”.
The attacker “made a hit on this, made a hit on that,” he said. “I’m stuck in my head,” he said.
“I was lucky. I got caught from my back a few times. They caught me a few times. From my front and my other arm. My face and everything.”
She added: “I’m going to need plastic surgery. One finger doesn’t seem very smart. They’ve all had stitches. I don’t know how long it’ll take.”
Mr Crean told the PA news agency he had no opportunity to escape to safety when the man approached “with what looked like a sword”, but was able to get into the train toilet after the confrontation.
He said of his decision to fight back: “Not many people would probably do that, but then you’re leaving the people behind you vulnerable.”
