Terrified mum barricaded daughters in station waiting room as man went on knife rampage

A mum was forced to barricade her terrified young children in a train station waiting room when Ronald Whelan attacked a fellow passenger at Blundellsands and Crosby train station

A terrified mum was forced to barricade her children inside a train station waiting room while a knife attack unfolded on the platform.

Ronald Whelan caused a fellow passenger's hand to pour with blood when he brandished the weapon after a row over the man leaving his bag on a seat.

The grandad, whose son is a professional footballer, said the incident was the "worst mistake he has ever made".

It was heard in Liverpool Crown Court how Muhammed Uddin boarded the Southport bound service at Liverpool South Parkway in Merseyside shortly after 1pm on August 2 this year travelling to Blundellsands and Crosby train station. He was sitting on the train with his bag on the seat next to him when Whelan entered the train, at which point "words were exchanged about the bag on the seat", the Liverpool ECHO reports.

CCTV footage then showed him seating himself beside the complainant, who subsequently moved to another part of the carriage after apparently calling the 59-year-old a "d***head". The defendant, of no fixed address, then exited at Blundellsands and Crosby ahead of Mr Uddin.

Philip Clemo, prosecuting, described how Whelan was thereafter seen passing through a gate directly in front of his victim, at which stage he pulled a knife from his pocket and turned around to make a "lunging motion" towards him. The complainant reacted by grabbing hold of the six-inch blade, leaving him with a cut to his hand.

The court also heard that another passenger, Megan Rimmer, "barricaded herself and her two babies in a waiting room until she was sure the defendant had gone" before she went to aid of Mr Uddin, helping to stem his bleeding. Mr Clemo said that the altercation "took place in the shadow of the Southport killings " only days earlier and had caused "considerable distress".

Ms Rimmer previously told the ECHO : "I was getting the train back from town with my two little girls, who are five and three. When you get off, there's a little gate by the car park where there's a little bit of a bottleneck if it's quite busy. As they were going through, he just turned round out of nowhere. There was no altercation, nothing happened, he just turned round and lunged at him with a knife.

"Muhammed put his hand out, so the knife went into his hand and there was just blood everywhere. He just started shouting 'he's got a knife, he's got a knife'. I just turned round the pram with my daughters in, went into the waiting room, shoved them into the waiting room and stood barricaded across the door in case the knife guy came that way, but he didn't.

"There wasn't any altercation in the build up. Muhammed was in shock afterwards. I didn't see anything. They were just going through the same gate and the white guy just turned round and lunged at him with a knife.

"By the time I'd put my girls into the waiting room and made sure the guy with the knife was going nowhere near them, everyone else had just cleared off. There was one girl who stayed in the waiting room but didn't go anywhere near for a few minutes, but everyone else just left.

"He was just stood there with blood pouring out of his hand. It looked really bad and there was blood everywhere. I had a keffiyeh scarf on my head, so I took that one off and wrapped it round his hand and was telling him to squeeze it to try and stop the bleeding. He called 999 straightaway. I felt really horrified about it to be honest, and just sad and scared. It was really upsetting, I didn't expect that. No one expects it in their area."

In a statement which was read out to the court on his behalf, Mr Uddin detailed how he had suffered from sleeping difficulties and nightmares since the attack. He also outlined how he had been forced to give up his job due to his newfound fear of taking public transport, adding: "I keep replaying the attack over and over in my mind.

"I find myself thinking about it constantly. I fear that the flashbacks will never go away and it is something I will have to put up with."

Whelan was arrested five days after the assault as he entered a gym. This led to him being alerted to the NCA, being a "wanted man in France in relation to the importation of over 100kg of high purity cocaine from Colombia".

Upon being released from custody, having been held on remand since the assault, he is expected to be detained again and brought before Westminster Magistrates' Court in order to face extradition proceedings. Whelan maintains that he "felt threatened" by the casualty.

Louise Santamera, defending, told the court that her client was a married father-of-two with one grandchild, with one of his sons being a professional footballer, and said: "He unequivocally accepts that he should not have done what he did. He found it very difficult to understand why he had followed him off the train.

"The complainant appears at his shoulder on the platform and mutters to him. He maintains that he did what he did to frighten to complainant away from him. He did not want to cause him any injury."

Ms Santamera added of Mr Uddin's behaviour on the train: "He was observed by others making offensive remarks. The defendant does not react to this. I observe the complainant looking across at the defendant on a number of occasions.

"The defendant has said to me that it is the worst mistake he has made. He accepts that he misjudged the situation and makes no excuse for his behaviour that day."

Whelan admitted wounding without intent and possession of a bladed article in a public place. Wearing a light grey fleece and sporting grey hair in the dock on Monday, he was handed a 15-month imprisonment suspended for 18 months plus 150 hours of unpaid work and a rehabilitation activity requirement of up to 25 days.

Sentencing, Recorder Ben Douglas-Jones KC said: "It is most fortunate for you that he was not injured further. There is no suggestion at all that he was threatening you. However, I accept that you felt threatened by his presence and the fact that he was close to you.

"That is why you drew the knife and acted in the way that is seen on CCTV. That is no excuse for what you did, but it is an explanation. I bear in mind your age and the fact that you have been out of trouble with the police for 40 years or so. It is extremely sad to see you back before the court all these years later."