Name: What We Know So Far About The Doncaster-London Train Attack | BBC Newscast
Uploaded: 2025-11-02T21:54:17.000Z
Duration: 29 min 46 s
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We're recording this at 11 o' clock when we have just had an update from the British Transport Police after a terrible attack on the 6:25 Doncaster to London, King's Cross.

The big headline for the last few minutes, Alex, is this.

At this stage there is nothing to suggest that this is a terrorist incident.

This is a British Transport Police investigation and we continue to work to establish at pace the full circumstances and the motivations that have led to this incident.

At this early stage, it would not be appropriate to speculate on the cause of this incident.

Yeah, I mean, obviously I can't even begin to think what it must have been like for the people on that train.

And immediately the news started to come through.

You know, we had some eyewitness accounts of just how awful it was, the politicians saying how horrific.

But what a lot of people were trying to fathom was the motive and what happened here.

And I think the critical bits we heard from that press conference were this really, firstly that the police saying that nothing supports the fact that this is a terrorist incident, really, really key.

And the other thing is the two people they've got in custody, a 32 year old black British national and a 35 year old British national of Caribbean descent, both born in the uk.

The police clearly very keen to get that information out.

So on today's newscast we will hear all, all the information that we have about that attack on the Doncaster to London train.

We'll hear from eyewitnesses, the police and the politicians all on this episode of Newscast.

Hello, it's Alex in the makeshift home studio and it's looking very lovely, your home studio, as I remarked yesterday, a lovely place to be and lovely to have you with us as Paddy is on his halls.

So as you were just saying, there has in the last half hour been a police press conference after the news broke late last about an unimaginable horror.

Just imagine being a passenger on a train when there's somebody, two people in this case, who we believe to have been trying to attack people, stabbing multiple people.

And as we speak, there have been many people who are in hospitals, some with life threatening injuries, but some who happily have already been discharged.

Let's just bring you the bullet points, if you like, from the press conference from the police.

So we had this update from Superintendent John Lovelace, as you say, not so long ago in the last 20 minutes, and we're recording this at 11am and he said that this was the 6:25 train from Doncaster.

He said around 7:42 the calls started to come in to the police about reports of multiple stabbings on this service.

They then went onto the train that stopped at Huntington station and with eight minutes of that 999 call they had two, nine men in custody.

He gave the details about the people that they had arrested.

A 32 year old black British national, a 35 year old British national of Caribbean descent, both born in the uk, both arrested on suspicion of attempted murder.

And of course the victims, the people who were affected by this, 10 initially taken to hospital and overnight we had reports that nine of those had life threatening injuries.

We now know that four have been discharged but there are still two patients with life threatening conditions.

And then he did go on to say that while counterterrorism police were in initially supporting this investigation, there is nothing, according to the police that suggests this is a terrorist incident.

So that's what we know so far about this horrendous incident on this train service.

And in any episode like this, Alex, we have to be incredibly careful about the concrete facts that we are aware of in any situation like this.

And it was interesting on the program this morning.

All our politicians talked about the need not to allow speculation to run rife for people not to circulate information online.

That was conjecture or guessing or even people trying to stir things up.

So those are newscasters, the concrete facts as we have them at 5 past 11 on Sunday morning.

Let's hear then from one of the people who was actually on that train.

There was a girl, bless her, who was really, really in a bit of state because the guy actually tried to stab her.

And one of the older guys is an absolute hero, blocked it with his head and he's got this like, gash.

He had his gash on his head, he's got his.

He's got a gash in his neck and he's kind of get, we're kind of giving him like jackets to keep the pressure on the blood.

So what was interesting here, Alex, is that between 9 and 10 all the politicians on the program said we hope that the police will give us information about identity and nationality of the attackers as quickly as they can.

And, and that does appear in fact to be what's happened.

The police were very careful to give the nationality and ethnicity and I suppose, I mean, I reckon that's a response to what happened in the days after the terrible Southport attacks.

It's almost become a feature now of this kind of incident and then subsequent investigation.

It's like another consideration for the police, because what they are conscious of and aware of, and we did see it in the wake of those horrendous Southport attacks, was because of social media, because of the way that people respond to something like this, because of a speculation and quite often mis and disinformation that is so quickly put out into the public domain and can get traction so quickly.

Police are now very deliberately and consciously having to make decisions about what they can release and when.

And it feels like there is a sort of real pressure for them to release that kind of information about race and ethnicity and nationality as soon as they possibly can.

And if you remember, Laura, after that, that incident with the Liverpool football parade, you know, police were very quick at that point to release details about the suspect who had been arrested because they wanted to stop speculation or misinformation online.

And it seems like in this case, we've had something very similar.

You know, it was right up front and center of that press conference this morning when they did tell us about the nationality of.

It's like a feature now of policing and policing decisions that they are having to consider when and how they release this information because of the threat of this misinformation.

And it's fascinating, isn't it, because that is a concrete change in a very serious bit of public policy.

How do the authorities react to something that might look like a terrorist incident?

How do they react to a serious form of crime?

And they're reacting to a change in everybody's behavior and the kind of things that people get up to on their phones or tablets or laptops.

And that is now a feature of these kinds of stories and these kinds of terrible events.

And politicians would also sort of dance around it.

They would say, well, we can't say anything because the police are operationally independent.

They'll release the information when they can.

And that political pressure is now very definitely there.

It was there also, remember, in the terrible synagogue attack, which is only a few weeks ago.

Then also the police in Greater Manchester moved very quickly to give as much information as they could about the identity of the attacker.

Partly, of course, because those images were out there, there on social media.

We haven't seen any of those kind of Images yet in the public domain.

Maybe by the time you listen to this, newscasters or the time you watch this, that there are images circulating and are available to show more of what happened on the train.

But it is one of the things that in 2025 has led the authorities to treat these kinds of events in a different way because of the impact of what technology has done to society.

And of course, politicians were also using technology to give their responses too, weren't they?

Yeah, well, he was out there quite quickly on social media expressing his concern about this attack, you know, and again, the message of message from politicians all about how horrendous this attack is and their thoughts with the victims and praise for the first responders and the paramedics.

So we heard from Keir Starmer on social media.

We also heard from Kimmy Badenock, who spoke to you about it, Laura, on your program saying something quite similar.

And what I was really struck by from all of the politicians that you spoke to, was them urging transparency about this quickly.

You know, so they wanted the authorities to give as much information as they could as quickly as they could.

But it's also interesting that when you speak to people, senior people in policing, they say that does pose another challenge because they have to weigh that up with the operational concerns about what information they can release without potentially jeopardizing any ongoing investigation.

You know, it's another complexity to these already really complex and fast moving police investigations.

We are a long way away from back in the day when you and I were trainee journalists going through the tomes of the rules and regulations about what you could or couldn't report.

And the police would often give as tiny amounts of information as they possibly could because of their fear about impacting or affecting an investigation or a potential future court case.

Times are very definitively changed given the fact that as things stand, there isn't a belief and there isn't evidence that this is a terror attack.

We also heard from John Healy, his defense secretary, who was with us this morning.

And he was urging people essentially to go about their business.

Normally to be vigilant, yes, but he said that the public was resilient.

People shouldn't be changing their behavior.

They shouldn't be terribly worried about this, although they should be vigilant when they are out and about and on the transport system.

But he said, look like lots of people, he's somebody who uses that train line.

This has been shocking and very close to home for me.

This was, I was on that very service with my wife Jackie, yesterday, just a few hours before the attack.

It's a line I use every week to get home to Rotherham.

And I pay huge tribute to the passengers, but also the emergency services for the way they responded, because this might have been so much worse if they hadn't acted in the way that they did.

So, I mean, the Defence Secretary there talking, and I guess many people will be actually having a sort of similar thing when you think how often you use the trains, about how, you know, for him, it felt so close to home because he'd been on that service only a couple of hours earlier, which, you know, you cannot forget the kind of human side of all this and those compelling eyewitness accounts from the people who just must have been absolutely terrified in that enclosed space.

But, you know, back to the kind of the wider challenge of policing and how they deal with the aftermath of these incidents, which clearly have such a, you know, a huge impact on individuals involved, but also kind of wider society, because people think, my goodness, what has happened here?

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What We Know So Far About The Doncaster-London Train Attack | BBC Newscast

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