A press officer for the British Transport Police, Jimmy Thomas, said in a statement to “Asharq Al-Awsat” that Yoshiyuki Shinohara, the pensioner who pushed a woman towards an underground train at Piccadilly Station last Tuesday is currently in custody charged with attempted murder and will appear in court on the 25th of November. He also emphasised that it was too early to know the motives of the crime before Shinohara’s appearance in court.

A video clip shows a hijab clad woman being pushed towards a train by a man and then bouncing back to miraculously survive death whilst some of those present formed a circle around the place where the man was standing.

In a statement by the British Transport Police (BTP) in London which “Asharq Al-Awsat” obtained a copy of, police officers received a call and went to Piccadilly Circus in central London where they received a report of the incident which occurred at around 4.09pm GMT. An ambulance arrived at the scene of the incident and the victim was taken to hospital where she was given stitches to her face.

Some social media users have described the incident as Islamophobic whilst police say that it is hard to determine motives until Shinohara appears in court on the 25th of November. A number of crimes have been reported on the British Transport Police website during the last two weeks alone including the theft of wallets, sexual harassment and a killing. The site also published details of a 7 month sentence handed to a man who sexually harassed a woman at Earls Court Station in London.

At every station and in every train carriage, the British Transport Police have displayed their number so that the public can report any suspicious behaviour in order to strengthen security in one of the oldest underground systems in the world.