Train attacker thought boy was 'devil', jury hears

A knifeman accused of trying to kill 10 people on a train had stabbed a teenager on another train earlier that day, appearing to believe his victim was the devil, a court heard.

Anthony Williams attacked 17-year-old Isaiah Idris on a Docklands Light Railway (DLR) train in London in the early hours of 1 November, the same day he is accused of a mass stabbing on a train that had to make an unscheduled stop in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire.

Cambridge Crown Court heard how Macarena Lopez, who saw the DLR attack, had said in an interview she felt Idris's attacker had been having a "psychotic episode".

Williams, 33, from Peterborough, denies 14 counts of attempted murder.

Jurors heard how Idris said he had been attacked just seconds after the train left West Silvertown station. His face had been "sliced".

In a video interview played in court, Idris, now 18, described how his attacker had repeatedly asked: "Are you beefing the devil?"

The man had tried to attack him again, before the teenager blocked him with his hand.

Lopez, who had been returning from a Halloween dinner, said the attacker had "fixated on the boy and started saying 'you are the devil' or 'you are the demon'".

She said "for some reason he thought that this boy was the devil and wanted to harm him" and that her "reading of the situation is he had a psychotic episode".

Jurors heard Lopez describe how, when the DLR train arrived at Pontoon Dock station, "it's almost as if by magic his brain switched off, like the psychotic moment calmed down".

Later in her interview, she said she felt "it didn't feel like someone woke up and say 'yes, today I'm going to kill this person'".

Lopez described it as more like "confusion-induced chaos".

During the prosecution opening, jurors had been told Williams had "some mental health issues which may or may not become relevant during this trial".

Williams is accused of attempting to murder Raza Aslam, Sachin Balakrishnan, Scott Bletcher, Stephen Crean, Kevin Deely, Jonathan Gjoshe, Scott Green, Michael Paffett, David Presland and Samir Zitouni on a London-bound train between Peterborough and Huntingdon on 1 November.

As well as the attack on Idris, he is accused of attempting to murder three people in Peterborough on 31 October.

The trial has been told that whether Williams carried out the attacks is not in question, but jurors must consider whether he intended to kill.

The trial continues.

Additional reporting by the Press Association.

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