John Phare: railway hero
JOHN PHARE was working in the ticket office at Plymouth station when he saw a man being stabbed repeatedly. Ignoring his own safety, he tackled the attacker, who was later convicted of murder. Phare won a standing ovation and a Judges’ Special Award at RA
“Iwas in the ticket office. It was a busy summer morning. I heard screams from the customers out the front. I quickly ran outside, where I saw a few taxi drivers looking on.
“A few said: ‘Don’t go in, there’s a guy with a knife.’ I ran in, and saw the guy with his arm around another man. And he was stabbing him in the head, the neck, chest - pretty much everywhere.”
August 8 2017, 1000 on a normal busy summer morning at Plymouth station. Parents were out with their children on a sunny day. The terrorist attack at London Bridge had taken place only a few months earlier, and those witnessing the frenzied attack feared the worst. John Phare didn’t listen to the warnings. “I said: ‘Drop the knife!’ But I pretty much knew he wasn’t going to do that. I was waiting for an opportunity to go in. Bit of a weird feeling, thinking you’re probably going to get stabbed at some point.
“But it all happened so quickly. He accidentally dropped the knife. I went to go in. The guy was picking up the knife, and said ‘I’ll ******* stab you, too’. And I thought ‘well, it’s not going to be the best morning’.
“I got lucky I think, that as he was stabbing the other guy he moved a bit to one side. It gave me a little bit of a window to get in and dump him on the floor.
“I somehow got hold of the knife and threw it away. Then I managed to stay on top of him until a few of the customers jumped in. There were a few contractors on the station as well, and they came and helped me out.”
The man being attacked was 49-year-old Wayne Fenton, a father of five. He was stabbed more than 40 times, and died in hospital an hour later. A former builder, he had been on home release from prison.
Phare recalls: “I think it was about ten minutes until the police turned up, and they took over. But we weren’t quick enough and we couldn’t save the guy.
“I was completely covered in blood, as you can imagine, and a few of the guys thought I’d been stabbed. You hear stories about people not knowing they’ve been stabbed in a situation like that, but luckily I hadn’t. I don’t actually know how. The blood was not mine - I must have got lucky.”
The attacker was 28-year-old Jamie Skinner, who had been dropping Fenton off at the station. As Fenton got out of the car, Skinner took a folding knife from his pocket and stabbed him in the neck.
Skinner has since been convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. The judge said he must serve a minimum of 22 years.
Had Phare, who was 33 at the time, any experience to draw on before tackling a murderer?
“No! I played rugby. But it’s not exactly something you can prepare for. It’s all very surreal. You never expect to be in a situation like that. But it’s better to act than to do nothing. That would be like having a life sentence yourself, constantly thinking about
the consequences of doing nothing.”
When the police came, they took Phare and other witnesses into a room at the station while they assessed what had happened. Phare had been on duty since 0615, but had to stay on until the evening.
“I was in a room waiting with the other guys, and my manager wanted me to go home. I got to my car but the police stopped me and asked me to come back. I was there till five or six, giving statements.” What did his family think? “My wife was pregnant at the time as well, so I thought I was going to get it in the ear. She was OK, though. Everyone was quite proud of me. It’s a weird feeling. I feel undeserving of all the praise, because the guy actually died.”
But the praise kept on coming anyway. The highlight was last September, when John was singled out for special commendation at
RAIL’s National Rail Awards, held at London’s Grosvenor House Hotel.
The industry rarely gives a standing ovation to one person… Phare’s went on and on.
It was not just for him. He was handed the Judges’ Special Award by the previous year’s winner of the same honour, British Transport Police officer Wayne Marques, who had been seriously injured while heroically tackling three knife-wielding terrorists at London Bridge with only his baton to defend himself.
Even after being stabbed in the head and temporarily blinded in one eye, Marques did not give up. He received serious knife wounds. The three attackers killed eight people, driving a van into pedestrians on London Bridge before stabbing others in Borough Market.
When he collected his award in 2017, Marques needed the helping hand of his Chief Constable, Paul Crowther, to reach the stage. He was greeted with by far the longest ovation in the NRA’s history. A year on, he was in stronger health, walking unaided to present the prize.
“It was glam,” reflects Phare. “I’d never been to an occasion like that. It felt a bit awkward when Wayne Marques was giving me the award he had the year before. You feel you shouldn’t be on the same stage as him. But it was good to meet everyone.
“I have stopped going to the awards ceremonies now. I missed out on two because, you know, you can only go to so many. I have trouble seeing it as a good thing, because someone has actually died.”
His employer, Great Western Railway, “has been great”, he says.
“They insisted I went to a counsellor, though I didn’t really want to. Actually he was an ex-policeman and he made me feel better about it.
“A lot of people had said to me: ‘What did you do that for, you idiot? Are you crazy?’ But in my head I had calculated the risk, I don’t know how. And the counsellor kind of made me feel better about what I had done. He said he felt I had actually thought about what I did, assessed it and thought about the risk to myself, and not just run stupidly at a man stabbing another man with a knife.”
With the benefit of hindsight, and the attacker behind bars until at least 2039, how does he look back on this part of his life?
“I’m not constantly thinking about it. I’m pretty good with stuff like that. I don’t re-live things. I went back to work the next day, weirdly enough. I wanted to make sure everyone else in the office was alright. The best thing to do is to just get back to work, get back to reality. I’m in the same job today.”
His baby boy is now eight months old. What will Phare tell him in years to come?
“I’ve got the National Rail Award on the mantelpiece. One day he’ll ask about it.”
It’s better to act than to do nothing. That would be like having a life sentence yourself, constantly thinking about the consequences of doing nothing.