Britain’s railways are becoming increasingly unsafe as new data reveals serious offences such as sexual and violent crimes have soared to all-time highs.
The country’s rail network saw record levels of crime, with a total of 80,000 incidents recorded by British Transport Police in 2023-2024.
Violent crimes and sex offences both soared to all-time highs and have more than doubled in the last ten years, with overall crime up 55 percent compared to 2014.
And while the majority of crimes occurred at large, busy stations with high footfall, some criminals are taking advantage of a lack of police at tiny stations around the country to get away with committing offences.
Johnston, an unstaffed stop in the Pembrokeshire village of the same name, saw 10 crimes in 2024, according to British Transport Police (BTP) figures.
Four of these were violent crimes, which can involve anything from a minor assault to stabbing.
Although barely any crimes were committed at Johnston, it logged the UK’s highest rate – 1,440 per million passengers – because of its low footfall. Just 7,000 passengers used the station in 2024, the equivalent of 19 a day.
It comes as footage showing a man threatening two women on a train earlier this month went viral this week, after he repeatedly said he would kill them and their boyfriends.
Footage filmed by the victims shows a man named ‘Elijah’ becoming increasingly agitated and shouting the threats while his friends urge him to stop and say he is ’embarrassing’ them as they travelled between Cardiff Central and Swindon.
Elijah is heard saying: ‘I’ll kill you. I’ll kill your boyfriend. I’ll follow you. I’ll follow you to your house. I’ll follow you to your boyfriend’s house, I’ll kill your boyfriend. Whatever bro.’
Eye witnesses said the passenger had demanded a group of women tell him who was the most attractive out of him and his friends.
The crazed commuter later adds: ‘If those two girls want to move, you can go. I’m not going to f***ing stop you from going.’
At one point the female passengers explain they ‘shouldn’t be the ones to move’ to which the uncouth man puts his hand to his mouth and gasps in exaggeration.
‘Elijah’ allegedly threw dried chewing gum at a third woman during the journey and ‘made one cry’.
The British Police (BTP) are investigating the confrontation believed to have taken place on the evening of May 18.
A force spokesman said: ‘We’re aware of a video circulating on social media showing a woman being repeatedly threatened by a man on a train.
‘There is absolutely no place for violent or intimidating behaviour on the railway network, and we encourage the victim or anyone who witnessed the incident to contact British Transport Police by texting 61016 or by calling 0800 40 50 40, quoting reference 271 of May 18.
‘You can also contact the independent charity Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555 111.’
Meanwhile at London St Pancras, former F1 world champion Jenson Button’s wife was recently targeted in a robbery that saw the thief make off with more than £250,000 worth of jewellery and designer handbags.
She and her husband were outside the station and getting into a car when the man nabbed her Goyard carry-on suitcase in a matter of seconds, stealing sentimental items that Brittny Button had hoped to pass on to her daughter.
Mourad Aid, 41, pleaded guilty to theft at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on 19 February 2025, five days after the incident.
He is due to be sentenced in court today.
London St Pancras had the highest number of crimes recorded of any station last year, at 1,616.
At neighbouring King’s Cross, Made in Chelsea’s Yasmine Zweegers fell victim to a terrifying new theft scam.
The 25-year-old influencer was outside the major railway hub in King’s Cross – having just returned from Yorkshire – when thieves cruelly stole her jewellery, laptop, camera and clothes, totalling to around £8,000, on February 10.
Yasmine believed a man, who had offered the reality TV star a tissue to clean brown paint from her coat, was simply being a kind stranger, however seconds later her bag was snatched as she was distracted.
And in March, a group of youngsters were seen trying to stab one another at Queensbury Tube station in north London.
In footage which was later uploaded onto social media, a youngster wearing a black jacket and grey hat lashes out with a machete and narrowly misses a boy dressed all in black, who wields a smaller knife.
An accomplice of the machete yob appears to be carrying a bottle which he then hurls at his rival from less than two feet away.
The fight – which took place in broad daylight – involved at least five youths but only two were armed with blades.
British Transport Police confirmed that they were aware of the 34-second long footage, posted onto X and Facebook, and said that one teenager had been arrested.
A force spokesman told : ‘Officers were called to Queensbury underground station at around 5.30pm yesterday (24 March) to reports of a fight involving knives on the platform.
‘Officers attended and one boy aged 16 was arrested on suspicion of possession of a bladed article and possession of a drug (Class B).
‘Enquiries into the incident are ongoing and anyone with information is asked to get in touch by texting 61016 or calling 0800 405040 quoting reference 490 of 24/03/25.’
In another incident which shocked the nation a gang of teenage girls were filmed attacking train staff, passengers and police in a booze-fuelled rampage at Barnham Station, West Sussex last year.
The five girls, the youngest of which was 13, were spared prison, despite throwing punches, headbutts and ripping out the hair of victims.
One girl held up a clump of hair from the head of a rail passenger like a trophy during the hour-long melee, a court heard.
All five admitted affray and assaults on train staff, police and members of the public. The judge said they would have been jailed if they had been old enough.
While London St Pancras topped the charts based on raw crime figures alone, a huge 35.8 million people use the station every year.
In contrast Redbridge, on the outskirts of Southampton had 1,180 crimes per million passengers.
Redbridge, operated by South Western Railway, saw 38 crimes last year, against its passenger count of more than 32,000.
The most common crimes were vehicle related, likely break-ins of cars and vans at its four-space car park.
Tiverton Parkway – on the busy Bristol to Exeter line in mid-Devon – is the top large station where passengers may be targeted by criminals.
In 2024, 484 crimes were reported there against its 581,000 footfall, giving a rate of 830 per million passengers.
Nearly half of these reports (219) were theft, while another 84 were shoplifting.
Technically, Ince and Elton Station in Cheshire saw the highest rate of 11,600 crimes per million passengers — but it only saw one offence committed.
It served 86 passengers on an extremely limited ‘parliamentary service’, meaning just one crime highly inflates the rate.
excluded crime rates for stations which had fewer than five crimes and fewer than 10,000 passengers.
Stations with more than five crimes and fewer than 10,000 footfall, or vice versa, are included in the rankings.
It comes after 19-year-old mother Stephanie Marie was stabbed to death in front of commuters by her boyfriend Jason Flore, 26, after an angry confrontation at Crawley Station, West Sussex, last August.
Chilling CCTV caught the moment the murderer, who plunged a 20cm knife into the heart of the mother of his child, casually walked his dog just moments later.
Within the 45 minutes between the murder and the arrest, Flore disposed of crucial evidence which included his blooded tracksuit bottoms.
And last November, a ‘lively and outgoing’ grandmother was ‘senselessly’ attacked at Birmingham New Street Station, one of the country’s busiest transport hubs.
Dorothy Chiles, 87, died at home six weeks later, just two days after Christmas, after being suffering a broken hip and being discharged from hospital.
Police said that a woman in her 20s was arrested on suspicion of manslaughter.
A BTP spokesperson said: ‘Every offence is one too many, and while we understand the concern that we recorded more total crimes last year, it’s important to understand these figures within their context. The chance of becoming a victim of crime on the railway remains extremely low, and reports of high harm crime such as robbery and violence remain low at 2.2 incidents per million passenger journeys.
‘Crucially, we know that these figures are influenced in part by more and more people having the confidence to report things like sexual harassment to us, and through the abundance of daily intelligence-led proactive operations taking place right across the railway network in England, Scotland and Wales. For example, in just one week alone in November our County Lines Taskforce arrested 65 people and seized 42 weapons through proactive deployments, and stop and search is at its highest use in BTP since 2010, with a 50% positive find rate in the last nine months.
‘It is also important not to sensationalise crime rate data. Stations like Johnston appear to have a high crime rate because they have a low number of crimes recorded combined with a low footfall of passengers, but with less than one crime recorded per month it’s simply incorrect to say that passengers are at greater risk of crime at these stations.’