Train Stabbings Prompt Nationwide Rail Security Review

Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander has said that rail security in Britain will be reviewed following a mass stabbing incident on a train.

 A man has been charged with 10 counts of attempted murder after a knife attack on a train travelling from Doncaster to London on Saturday night.

 Ms Alexander said the government would "review security arrangements" and act "swiftly and appropriately".

 But she does not believe airport-style scanning technology is "the right solution for UK stations".

 Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood will give a statement to MPs in the House of Commons on Monday afternoon about the attack.

 Questions are being raised about passenger safety on Britain's rail network after a black British man attacked passengers with a knife on a train at Peterborough station.

 Eleven people, including a member of railway staff, are being treated in hospital, where their condition is described as "serious but stable".

 British Transport Police (BTP) said on Monday morning that Anthony Williams, 32, of Peterborough, has been charged with 10 counts of attempted murder, one count of grievous bodily harm and one count of possession of a bladed article.

 She added: "Thankfully, incidents like this are extremely rare on the public transport network."

 She said Britain's rail network is a "low-crime environment" with only 27 crimes per million passenger journeys.

 Asked what steps the government would take to increase security on trains, she said: "We are investing in better CCTV at stations and the Home Office will shortly be launching a consultation on facial recognition and other technologies that could also be deployed at stations."

 Asked about luggage scanners used at some major railway stations abroad, she said: "At the moment, I don't think that kind of airport-style scanning technology is the right solution for UK stations." 'Genuine Concerns'

Former British Transport Police chief constable Andy Trotter told BBC Breakfast that Saturday's attack "reflects genuine concerns people have that they might be caught up with a criminal or a troublemaker."

"I hope this will lead to a wider review of security, and a recognition that more British Transport Police are needed, and that rail companies also need more security."

 Asked about reports that the BTP had conducted a training exercise based on a similar incident a few months earlier, he said: "I know they did a similar exercise, because a few weeks before 7/7 we also did an exercise that was very similar to the outcome of that day.

 "It makes working on the day so much better, you learn from the experience of those exercises what went well and what didn't.

 "The police and other emergency services also review every incident immediately afterwards to make sure you learn the lessons."

 Asked why the suspect in Saturday's stabbing incident should have been stopped and searched before boarding the train, given that only his age, gender and ethnicity were known, he said: "It would depend on whether there was any indication of suspicion."

 He added: "But in high-crime areas, stop and search should be carried out without any suspicion."

 Asked if he was suggesting that the man should have been stopped and searched simply because of his skin colour, he said: "Absolutely not, I'm not saying that at all."

 In 2024, the Conservative government described the laws relating to knife crime in England and Wales as "already among the toughest in the world."

 Asked why these laws were no longer sufficient, he said: "We need to toughen up the laws relating to knife crime even further, and we need more stop and search, and we need to use technology like live facial recognition to identify wanted criminals and dangerous people so they can be arrested." Reform UK's senior leader, Zia Yusuf, said on Sunday that he would not want to increase security at railway stations.

 Speaking on the BBC's "Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg" programme, he said that the actions of "a tiny minority" would place "huge pressure" on the lives of law-abiding people.

 He advocated a significant increase in the use of stop-and-search powers "to saturation point" and said this would reduce the prevalence of deadly weapons.

 There is no single published statistic for knife crime across the UK, but in England and Wales, the latest figures published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that police recorded 51,527 offences in the year to June 2023.

 However, these figures show a 5% decrease in knife crime compared to the same period the previous year.