A student wept as she was cleared of threatening to knife a 15-month-old baby on a packed Tube carriage.

Millicent Barnes, 22, was accused of telling Geraldine Brannigan she had a blade in her bag as she boarded the rush-hour train at Bank Tube station.

The University of Northampton student allegedly threatened Ms Brannigan while her father was pushing the buggy onto the carriage.

Barnes, who has thousands of followers on Instagram and Twitter, was arrested after the British Transport Police released CCTV after the incident on July 18.

Ms Brannigan was out celebrating her brother's graduation with eight of her family members when they separated while boarding at Bank Tube station.

Millicent Barnes, 22, who was accused of telling Geraldine Brannigan she had a blade in her bag as she boarded the rush-hour train at Bank Tube station was cleared today

Footage from the day of the incident appears to show Barnes on the tube train. She was alleged to have carried out a furious verbal attack

It was claimed Barnes became abusive after Ms Brannigan's baby kicked her on the leg.

Ms Brannigan tearfully told City of London Magistrates’ Court: 'She said, she did not give a f**k about the baby, and she will stab it'.

But in her police interview Barnes said the incident had nothing to do with the baby kicking her and denied threatening or harming the infant.

Giving evidence Barnes told the court the row began when the pram was pushed into her knee - and insisted it was Ms Brannigan who said she had a knife in her bag.

She said: 'I was going to Shepherd's Bush television studio to watch the Big Narstie television show.

'I was with the family and my friend. I was wearing a low 'v' white top, jeans and sliders (slippers) and a bag.

'As I was standing on the train he (the father of Ms Brannigan) has rammed the wheel of the pram into my knee and my knee has dipped. I have a hip condition.

'I have said 'you have hit me in the back of my leg twice now can you apologise please? And he said 'I am not apologising'.

'He rammed it onto my foot that was on the train. The baby was sleeping. Originally, I only saw the man, baby and what seemed to be his son.

'At this point I did not see anybody it was just the two males and the baby. I was very, very calm, extremely calm, until after I got threatened. That is when I changed.

'The brother (of Ms Brannigan) threatened me. He said 'Stop talking to my dad like that or I am going to do you in' and he had his fist clenched.

'I thought he was going to punch me in the face. I was confused as to why I was being threatened after all I did was ask for an apology.

'I got angry straight away, why am I being threatened when I got hurt on the train by somebody who is a bigger form to me as well.'

Barnes added: 'She popped up (Ms Brannigan) I don't remember seeing her until the train was already moving.

The student was accused of threatening to knife a terrified 15 month old baby on a Tube

'She had a bag crossed over her. She moved in front and she is fumbling inside her bag and she says: "I have got a knife in my bag" and I said you better use it then. Where I grew up you don't make an empty threat. You don't say you have a knife for no reason.

'I felt like it was a racist attack. I am just saying if I were a white person and I asked them to apologise they would have apologised.'

Barnes denied threatening the baby with the knife but admitted being confrontational and saying 'I don't give a f*** about the baby'.

Finding her not guilty of using threatening or abusive language Magistrate Ian Leuder said: 'It is clear to us on the evidence there was a nasty altercation between you, Ms Barnes and various members of Ms Barnes' family.

'The result was fear of violence from Ms Brannigan emanating from you.

'We did not consider that this was your intention, we therefore find that the case has not been proved beyond reasonable doubt.'

Emma Foubister, defending Barnes, said: 'This incident was an argument on the Tube in rush hour. Undoubtedly, the defendant was angry and she accepts that she was confrontational.

'She did not have a knife or threaten to use a knife. She did not intended to make anyone, in particular Ms Brannigan and her baby, believe that she would cause her harm.

'The prosecution theory, that Ms Barnes was taking this out on the baby simply because she believed she was kicked by the baby simply does not sit well with the evidence.

'We have also heard today that Ms Barnes hit and spat, that is simply not corroborated in any of the statements heard today.

'Ms Barnes' intentions were only to defend herself against threats from others.

'It is extremely unlikely, that Ms Brannigan believed she would be the victim of some kind of assault when she was on a packed train surrounded by her family, when Ms Barnes was on her own.'

Barnes wept as she left court.

Following the incident, Barnes had tweeted her 5,000 followers from her Twitter account @m_ldnn_, saying: 'i may be mad, i may have a temper but if you know me, you know that i would NEVER do that.'

She also claimed that she was the victim of a verbal attack, tweeting: 'after being verbally assaulted, i'm not going to stand there like a fool. i'm gonna react.'

Barnes, of Sidmouth House, Lindsey Estate, Peckham, southeast London, denied one count of using threatening or abusive language and was cleared.

Earlier the student had broken down in tears in court saying she couldn't have threatened to stab a 15-month-old baby during rush hour - because her brother was stabbed to death two weeks before and died in hospital.

She said: 'I did not threaten to stab anyone. How could I when my brother died in hospital because he got stabbed in the chest?

'How a couple of weeks after could I say on the train that I'm going to stab somebody?'

City of London Magistrates' heard earlier the child's mother Geraldine Brannigan felt intimidated as she was 'cornered' with her family by the tube doors as it travelled between Bank and St Pauls.

She earlier told the court: 'She said, she 'did not give a f**k' about the baby, and she will stab it'.

She added: 'I am 100 percent sure. You cannot not hear those words. I have never heard anything so vile in all my life. I could hear people shouting 'you are going to stab a child'.

'The more I heard this the more I realised this was so wrong, unethical, what type of person is this?

Earlier the student had broken down in tears in court saying she couldn't have threatened to stab a baby during because her own brother was stabbed to death two weeks before

'It did feel like she had quite a lot of space. We were all cornered slightly against the walls.

'It felt like it was getting worse because I did not know if it was because we felt we had been trapped with her for so long. I have never seen anything like that ever before.

'I remember when we were trying to get off the train she was still hurling abuse at us. She was trying to spit on use. For me, that is one of the lowest things you can do to somebody. It is a very foul action.

'I kept shouting she is threatening to stab my child. I do not know who but somebody grabbed my child and took her out the push chair and hand her to me.

'The more I heard this the more I realised this was so wrong, unethical, what type of person is this?

'It did feel like she had quite a lot of space. We were all cornered slightly against the walls.

'It felt like it was getting worse because I did not know if it was because we felt we had been trapped with her for so long. I have never seen anything like that ever before.

Following the incident, she tweeted her 5,000 followers from her Twitter account @m-ldnn-, saying: 'i may be mad, i may have a temper but if you know me, you know that i would NEVER do that.'

'I remember when we were trying to get off the train she was still hurling abuse at us. She was trying to spit on use. For me, that is one of the lowest things you can do to somebody. It is a very foul action.

'I kept shouting she is threatening to stab my child. I do not know who but somebody grabbed my child and took her out the push chair and hand her to me.'

'She aggressively reverted from my daughter to my mother and said: 'Don't tell me to f****** shut my mouth you are an old lady, you will have a f****** heart attack and you don't know what I have got in my bag.

Barnes had previously denied the claims

'This is clearly not somebody you can reconcile with. It did not seem to be getting anywhere. It felt at the time whatever I said or did there was nothing I could do.

'She was learning into my face in a very close and aggressive manner 'What are you going to do?' I said 'do it'.

'I felt vulnerable like there was no escape from this person. I tried to reconcile with this person, but it was clearly not working. We were trapped in this train against the door. We were completely in her hands.'

The girl's mother added: 'She kept saying what are you going to do? I said: 'do it' because I just wanted it to finish it. I just thought she was going to hurt me, stab me - just end us forever, do it.

'My daughter was screaming now. My daughter can see all of us, she most sense the fear and commotion. A member of the public jumped in and said 'you need to stop the child is scared'.

'I explained to her that she cannot say sorry, she is too small.

'At that point that still was not good enough and then the individual in question I could sort of see her again still ranting and raving. She makes a suggestion that she is going to go into her bag. I can never say if something was there or whether it was just scaremongering.

'She said she was going to stab the child and then when she makes the suggestion I thought this was finally it. She is going to do what we had been fearing, she was going to get some form of weapon out her bag.'

The family got off one stop down the line at St Paul's station, the court heard.

The 22-year-old claimed it was not her that said she had a knife in her bag - but the mother of the child she is alleged to have threatened.

She had also denied threatening the baby with the knife but admitted being confrontational and saying 'I don't give a f*** about the baby'.

Asked about why her breasts hit Ms Wilson at one point she said it was unintentional.

She denied bragging about her cup size, adding: 'How can somebody who is having a breast reduction say that. It doesn't make sense.'