A man who shoved a stranger in front of a train over a “dirty look” has pleaded not guilty to attempted murder.
Brwa Shorsh, 24, allegedly shoved postman Tadeusz Potoczek off the southbound Victoria line platform at Oxford Circus station on February 3.
Shorsh’s actions were described as “shocking and random violence”, Inner London Crown Court was told.
Sam Barker, prosecuting, said that “happily, tragedy was avoided”, with Porotczek avoiding the electrified rail.
A passerby rushed to help pull the victim off the track.
Experienced train driver Robert Walker hit the emergency brake after spotting Potoczek in his red jacket.
Barker said: “The prosecution say there is only one reason you would push someone in front of a train and that is to kill them.”
Shorsh listened to the hearing through a Kurdish interpreter and pleaded not guilty to attempted murder.
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Inner London Crown Court
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He also denied an alternative count of attempted grievous bodily harm.
Potoczek was on his way home via central London and looking up at a notice board when the incident happened.
Barker said: “Without a word of explanation [or] sort of provocation, [Shorsh] leapt up and shoved him hard.”
He added: “To his [Potoczek] horror a train was coming into the station – it was actually at the mouth of the entrance and because he stayed on his feet and [with] the quick-thinking member of the public [there] he was pulled out.”
An image of Oxford Circus
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The train was travelling at 38 miles per hour and two of its carriages already entered the platform.
Barker said: “If he [the driver] had looked away for a few seconds, he [Potoczek] would have been killed.”
The court was told Shorsh believed three women were being rude to him and then thought Potoczek had “given him a look”.
Potoczek “did not look at him whatsoever – it is the stuff of nightmares and he just felt himself being pushed in front of a train,” Barker claimed.
Source Agencies
