On a Saturday morning in Blackpool, a couple of dozen Countdown enthusiasts gathered in the function room of a social club for a get-together.
They met most months to play a version of the long-running quiz game and among their number were former champions of the Channel 4 show.
One of them, Thomas Carey, was chatting to old friends when he heard a strange growling sound and saw a man rushing towards him with a kitchen knife.
‘He came up to me with the knife, then he stabbed me in the arm,’ the Cambridge maths graduate, 27, recalled of last year’s terrifying attack.
A scuffle ensued until his blood-covered assailant, with help from others, was disarmed and forced to the ground.
Despite the fact he had shaved off his distinctive beard, those present knew the knifeman was John Cowen.
He, too, was a former Countdown champion. And, like the others, he had subsequently met fellow enthusiasts – both at social events and on Apterous, a website on which simulated versions of the game can be played.
While for them it was a bit of a fun, Cowen had turned against the community, accusing them of ‘cheating’ by practising online.
John Cowen with his painted fingernails. He targeted members of the Countdown community
And so in September 2024, he launched the attack on Mr Carey that yesterday saw him sentenced at Preston Crown Court. Diagnosed with schizophrenia, Cowen, 31, was ordered to be detained in hospital indefinitely under the Mental Health Act by Judge Guy Mathieson.
‘This was a terrifying incident of deliberate violence with a knife which could have caused far more serious injuries and possibly a fatality,’ the judge told him.
But that is far from the end of the story. The Daily Mail can exclusively reveal that far from being a one-off incident, Cowen had targeted the Countdown community for years – including one of the show’s actual presenters.
At the end of 2021, maths prodigy Anne-Marie Imafidon stood in for Rachel Riley for 60 shows while she was on maternity leave. Soon after, she became the subject of horrific messages and posts by Cowen, many of them racist in nature. He threatened to have her ‘raped and murdered’ in one, writing: ‘U might think ur in a strong position to get me sent to prison for posting this, however you are not in a strong position at all, because ur dumb.’
Pictures posted online by Cowen included an official photo of Dr Imafidon, a British-Nigerian computer scientist, on the Countdown set over which he had scrawled the words ‘stupid f****** foreigner’ in Japanese – a language he used in some posts.
His vile campaign lasted for five months in 2022, during which he also targeted women working for a social enterprise company Dr Imafidon had created.
Fearing for her safety, she contacted police and Cowen was arrested. In November 2023, he pleaded guilty to racist and threatening abuse – but told police it was just a ‘joke’ done for ‘shock value’. He walked free from court with an order to undertake rehabilitation and 150 hours of unpaid work.
A restraining order was also imposed, but the Daily Mail understands he broke it soon after by sending more messages.
Thomas Carey, a Cambridge maths graduate and rival, was stabbed by Cowen last September
In May last year, he appeared before magistrates and was given another 140 hours of community service for the breach.
Dr Imafidon told the Daily Mail she was concerned there had been missed opportunities to stop Cowen’s behaviour sooner.
‘I remember thinking this could blow up, this could be a bigger thing, like more physical, but thankfully it didn’t become physical for us,’ she said.
‘I think there was a lack of understanding or competence on the nature and severity of that kind of crime. It definitely didn’t feel like the system was set up to take the nature of what was happening seriously.’
Another source with first-hand experience of Cowen’s abusive behaviour added: ‘It sounds to me that no one was joining the dots across these incidents.
‘He’s able to argue in one incident it is just a bit of online trolling that got out of hand, but then there were other things going on and they are not putting the pieces together that this is something that could easily escalate.’
Cowen, who until recently still lived with his parents in Morecambe, Lancashire, made his Countdown debut in 2017. Also a maths graduate, he won all eight of his heat games to become an ‘octochamp’ – a term coined by the show’s long-time host, Richard Whiteley.
He crossed paths with Mr Carey, also a celebrated octochamp, when the pair took part in the Championship of Champions XV series in January 2019. They lost to different opponents at the quarter-final stage. Both Cowen and Mr Carey then became members of Apterous. But, having joined in 2018, it wasn’t long before Cowen directed vile abuse at his fellow users. Concerned by his behaviour, a complaint was made to Lancashire Police.
Maths prodigy Anne-Marie Imafidon was subject to horrific social media posts and messages
‘It was a sustained thing for quite a long time,’ said the source. ‘Initially they tried to ignore it, but as it started getting more specific, more violent and happening not just on the site but on social media, then people started taking it more seriously.’
It is unclear what, if any, action Lancashire Police took. Repeated requests from the Daily Mail for a comment went unanswered.
But what we do know is that Cowen continued to target the Countdown community – and between July and the end of November 2022 directed a flood of threatening and abusive comments at Dr Imafidon. Some included sexual slurs, threats and racist language, and he also targeted those linked to a group she had set up called the Stemettes, aimed at encouraging women to take part in the world of science. ‘I don’t hate women in general, i only hate the stemettes, especially that monkey ass ***** off countdown,’ he wrote in a post in November 2022.
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BREAKING NEWS Countdown champion, 31, who stabbed rival felt ‘cheated’ because rivals were using app
In another post, other well-known figures connected to Countdown were tagged, including Ms Riley, Colin Murray and Susie Dent. Full of threats, it described them as ‘filthy f****** peasants’ and spoke of forcing those included to apologise.
Selfies from around the time show Cowen in a dimly lit, cluttered bedroom, proudly showing off his overgrown fingernails – which were so long they had begun to curl over.
Following a complaint to police, Cowen was arrested. He was charged with threatening and racially abusing Dr Imafidon, appearing before magistrates in Preston in November 2023. His appearance in court suggests he was deemed well enough to take part in the proceedings. Cowen admitted sending the posts but told police it was a ‘joke’ and he was ‘defending his work and the work of social media friends’.
As part of the sentence, an indefinite restraining order was put in place to stop him contacting Dr Imafidon or those involved with Stemettes.
Cowen broke that order and not long after targeted Mr Carey.
On the weekend in question, the court heard that Mr Carey and about 30 others belonging to the fan-run group met in Blackpool to compete against one another. He was talking to two others in the function room when Cowen entered, a knife ‘glinting’ in his left hand. Initially Mr Carey thought the weapon was fake, but Cowen lunged at him, stabbing him in the biceps.
At an earlier hearing, the court was told Cowen had first muttered something about feeling ‘cheated’ because rival quizzers were using the app to practise online ahead of contests. But Mr Carey was said to have been at a ‘complete loss’ as to why he had been singled out for the attack.
Because Cowen was ruled unfit to stand trial, a hearing was held in which jurors were asked to decide whether he stabbed Mr Carey, but not what his intention was. The jury found him guilty of one count of wounding and two counts of possessing a bladed article in a public place.
As for Mr Carey, relatives told the Daily Mail they were ‘thankful’ the attack had not been ‘a hell of a lot worse’.
A lucky escape – but one that could, or perhaps should, have been avoided altogether.
