A neighbour of the alleged Huntingdon attacker says he called police about a violent ambush on his car a week before the stabbings, but no officers investigated, the Daily Mail can reveal.
Jan Krawczenko, 46, said a ‘very, very aggressive’ man leapt out from the pavement and began kicking his car in the early hours of October 25.
It was the Saturday before Anthony Williams, 32, is accused of boarding an LNER train at Peterborough station on November 1 and stabbing passengers with a knife.
Police are already facing questions about why the train attack was not thwarted after Williams was linked to two stabbings and an incident where he allegedly brandished a knife in a barber’s shop in the 24 hours before the rampage.
Now it can be disclosed that Mr Krawczenko also phoned Cambridgeshire Police to report a violent incident a week earlier when his car was kicked.
But no officers were sent to the scene to investigate and he was instead simply given a crime reference number. He has not heard anything further from the force.
The father-of-three lives a few doors up from where Williams resided with his family on Langford Road, Peterborough, and had been driving to work up the cul-de-sac when his car was targeted.
He said the assailant was a black man in all-black clothes with his hood up and a rucksack on his back.
Mr Krawczenko said he initially tried to confront the individual, but was so alarmed by his erratic behaviour that he decided to drive away.
At this point, he said, the man picked up a rock from a nearby front garden and went to launch it in the direction of his car.
Security footage from Mr Krawczenko’s home, shared exclusively with the Daily Mail, shows an individual in all black clothes with his hood up walking along the road in the minutes after the vehicle was kicked.
Mr Krawczenko can then be seen tentatively driving back up the road a few minutes later to identify which house the assailant had entered.
He told the Daily Mail: ‘He jumped into the road and tried to kick my car at about 3.10am, I was on my way to work as I start at 3.30am.
‘He was kicking it like a football or something.
‘I pulled over the car and tried to ask him what was going on, but he was being very, very aggressive so I decided to stay in my car – I couldn’t even open the door.
‘I was in shock, it’s never happened before on this street.
‘I tried to follow him, but he grabbed some stones to try to attack me again.
‘I called the police at that moment.’
Asked if the police sent any officers out in response to his call, he replied: ‘No, no-one. They sent me a message and they told me if my car was damaged I had to call again.’
Mr Krawczenko, who works as a driver, said he did not know Williams personally and was unaware he lived on the road until after his eventual arrest over the Huntingdon attack.
A spokesman for Cambridgeshire Police said: ‘We received a call from a man saying an unknown suspect had kicked his vehicle at 3.19am on October 25.
‘We are now in the process of speaking to the victim and this incident is part of our ongoing review.’
Williams, 32, appeared at Peterborough Magistrates’ Court on Monday charged with 10 counts of attempted murder after passengers were stabbed on the LNER train on Saturday.
He is further accused of attempting to kill a man who was stabbed at Pontoon Dock Docklands Light Railway (DLR) station in east London the night before the train attack, as well as one count of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and two counts of possession of a bladed article.
On Tuesday, British Transport Police (BTP) formally linked the investigation into the train attack with four other stabbing or knife incidents in the 24 hours leading up to the rampage.
The other incidents included the stabbing of a 14-year-old boy in Peterborough city centre on October 31 and, minutes later, a confrontation with staff and customers at a nearby barber’s shop.
Exclusive footage obtained by the Daily Mail shows a man alleged to be Williams pulling a knife and entering Ritzy Barbers near Peterborough station at 7.25pm on Friday.
He was then spotted again outside the barber’s shop at 9.16am the following day – barely 10 hours before he allegedly boarded the train at Peterborough station – but police took half an hour to respond.
By the time officers finally arrived, the suspect had vanished.
One of the barbers, Cody Greene, 23, told the Daily Mail: ‘Even though we called the police, I feel guilty because it could have been prevented if action had been taken.
‘Why did they not believe us until it’s actually too late?’
