Two police officers are to face gross misconduct hearings over their handling of an alleged assault reported weeks before the mass stabbings on a train near Huntingdon. The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) investigated after a complaint, and its findings matter because the officers are accused of failing to properly investigate and then concealing their conduct in the run-up to a far more serious attack.

A constable is alleged to have failed to carry out appropriate enquiries after a reported attack on 27 September last year that left a man, named as Ricky Butcher, 35, with facial injuries. That officer and a colleague of the same rank are then said to have falsely claimed no CCTV was available and included inaccurate information in a crime report. The IOPC's Emily Barry said it would be for the force to organise the hearing and for a misconduct panel to decide whether the allegations are proven. Separately, several people were stabbed on 1 November on a Doncaster to London King's Cross service that was halted at Huntingdon; Anthony Williams, 32, was later charged with ten counts of attempted murder over the train incident, plus further attempted murder charges and other counts relating to separate incidents.