Huntingdon: Aussie recounts moment he came face-to-face with alleged UK train attacker Anthony Williams

An Australian man has recounted the terrifying moment he came face-to-face with the alleged stabbing attacker aboard a London train.

Matt Kingston, an Aussie expat who has been living in the UK for nine years, was aboard the “super quiet” train as chaos erupted and people began running for their lives, trying to escape a man with a knife.

The Saturday evening journey home to London for Mr Kingston, who had been visiting a Yorkshire dog breeder, turned into one of survival as he found refuge behind a locked cabin door, before sighting Anthony Williams, the alleged attacker.

Mr Williams has been accused of carrying out the mass stabbing and has been charged with 11 counts of attempted murder, including a separate incident earlier at a train station in East London.

“I was on it (the train) from the start, from Doncaster. I had headphones on, and a handful of people started running down the middle of the carriage,” Mr Kingston told 2GB’s Ben Fordham on Tuesday morning.

“People started screaming, ‘he’s got a knife’ and ‘run, run’.

“I had no idea what was going on and chose to move after seeing the sheer number of people frantically running away.

“I popped up and I thought, ‘look there’s too many people on the move here, best thing to do is take off and run down the carriage’.

“I’m super grateful to be alright and come out of it unscathed,” he added.

Police said they were also investigating whether there were any links between those incidents and a stabbing in the suspect’s hometown of Peterborough the previous night, as well as two other incidents there.

A member of the train crew was hurt while trying to stop the attack and was still in the hospital on Monday in a critical but stable condition.

“I’ve gone all the way through, and it might have been two carriages down. In the middle of these trains, there’s food, bar things, and I noticed there were staff in there, and they were shutting the shutters, and the door was still open,” Mr Kingston said.

“I’ve hit that door and thought this is open, this feels safe, and this is going to lock, and I jumped in there.

“There were two train staff and two others, and we were joined by about five or so.

“It was pretty terrifying.”

As the door to the space the group had jammed themselves into was about to lock, an act of bravery from one person inside the food car did not go unnoticed.

“An extra person in the car stepped out to confront the attacker, and then that’s when the door shut. He’s come out as one of the worst injured,” Mr Kingston said.

“The attacker kind of walked past us, and we saw the man walk past us super calmly.

“He continued on down the carriage, and 45 seconds later, he came back, and I got to see him in the face.

“He was calm, but he was wielding a massive kitchen knife.”

“I’ve never felt panic and fear that that before.”

Mr Williams, a 32-year-old UK citizen, appeared at Peterborough Magistrates’ Court on Monday and was remanded in custody until his next court hearing on December 1.

Police have ruled out terrorism and said the suspect acted alone.

He was arrested when the train made an emergency stop in the town of Huntingdon, about 120km north of London.

Police say he was detained within eight minutes of officers receiving the first emergency calls.

With AP.