Ayaan Ali, 28, has been charged with attempted murder, affray and possession of an offensive weapon after a man was stabbed in Barnsley town centre, South Yorkshire Police said.

Ali, of Isleworth, Middlesex, is in custody and will appear at Barnsley Magistrates’ Court tomorrow, the force said.

Chief Superintendent Scott Green, district commander for Barnsley, confirmed yesterday’s incident was not a group attack, adding: “We can now also confirm definitively that this was not an act of terrorism.”

“We’ve had officers scouring hours of CCTV, working in partnership with other agencies, to gather as much information as we can about the circumstances surrounding yesterday’s incident,” he said.

Officers were initially called at 8.20am Saturday to reports that a man had been stabbed in the town centre.

There were then a number of other reports of a person roaming the area with a bladed weapon.