Silverchair frontman Daniel Johns has led tributes to a young Newcastle musician after he was tragically hit and killed by a train in May.

The famous singer took to Instagram on Sunday to share a special tribute to Sam Murphy, who was killed at Cardiff Station on a night out on May 21, aged 23. 

A fundraiser ‘Shred For Sam’ will be held on Sunday at The Newcastle Hotel to pay tribute to Sam’s love of rock music and serve as a fundraiser for his family. 

Daniel’s tribute began: ‘A talented and loving young man Sam Murphy was tragically hit by a train and killed.

‘Sam was a beautiful son to De, a supportive brother to Cheyenne, a loyal cousin to Lachlan, a respected bandmate and a friend to many.’ 

After reading a story about Sam and seeing a photo of the young man’s best friend Zane Fleming wearing a Silverchair T-shirt, Daniel decided to reached out to Sam’s family.

‘We spoke about honouring Sam and making sure his legacy and love of music was never forgotten,’ Daniel wrote. 

He went on to encourage fans to leave a loving message. 

‘Like me, most of you won’t have met Sam but it would mean a lot if you could leave a message of support for him here or elsewhere,’ he wrote. 

He confirmed that the show will be on Sunday, with Zane’s band Lost Plaza being in the line-up. 

The Shred For Sam line-up also includes Catpiss, Tyrants, Lamphead, Lost Plaza, Handsome Alice, Ryan Jack, Finnian Johnson, Charlii Ben, and G.A.G. 

‘To Sam’s family including De, Cheyenne and Lachlan, my heart goes out to you all. Please stay strong for each other and know that you are not alone in this.’ 

He added a special message to Sam. 

‘To Sam, your legacy and your life will be celebrated and one day when the time comes we will meet wherever we go next and jam together,’ he wrote. 

‘You might have to remind me how to play some of the old Silverchair songs again,’ he finished, with a love heart.

Sam had just completed a Bachelor’s degree of Communication at the University of Newcastle and intended to join the airforce. 

The festival organiser is Ben Hastings, who was Sam’s best friend from his school days at St Paul’s Catholic College at Booragul. 

Sam’s mother De Murphy told The Newcastle Herald that she would be at the concert, along with daughter Cheyenne, 22.  

‘I think it’s beautiful that Ben’s organised this, it really means a lot,’ De told the publication.

‘It’s a beautiful honour to him as he was obsessed with music.’

Other bands took the time to share a tribute to Sam, including friend Zane Flemming, who was previously in the band Mission: Banana, with Sam. 

Zane told The Newcastle Herald that Sam inspired him with guitar and was supportive of his musical ambitions. 

‘Sam definitely helped and inspired me with guitar because it’s not my first instrument,’ Zane said. 

‘It was really cool to have him there to help me make the transition.’ 

Organiser Ben paid tribute to Sam saying he was the ‘funniest dude’ and his laughter was ‘contagious’ to others. 

Police now believe Britain’s most wanted man is in Chiswick wearing a black baseball cap, t-shirt and dark bottoms as their search moves to west London.

The new information follows witness sightings of Daniel Khalife confirmed overnight, including calls from members of the public.

Officers remain in Chiswick and are now planning to carry out further intensive search activity today.

A police helicopter was deployed last night over Chiswick House and Grove Park amid the search. 

The Metropolitan Police said in a statement today: ‘We urge members of the public in that area to remain vigilant and call 999 immediately should they see Khalife, or if they have any information that could assist the search. 

‘Whilst we advise members of the public not to approach Khalife if they see him, we still assess that he does not pose a threat to the wider public.’

Former soldier Khalife, 21, who is alleged to have spied for Iran, escaped from Wandsworth Prison in a delivery van on Wednesday morning. 

The search for him remains a significant operation led by the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command. 

More than 150 of the Met’s counter terrorism officers and staff are working at pace around the clock to try and find Khalife. 

The Met is offering a reward of up to £20,000 for information that leads to the arrest of Daniel Abed Khalife, as detectives confirmed a sighting of him near Wandsworth Roundabout. 

CCTV shows the van after it left the prison but detectives believe Khalife had already made off by the time the footage was captured. 

Elsewhere, officers received a tip-off from a member of the public who said they saw a man fitting Khalife’s description walking away from a BidFood van that stopped near the south entrance to the Wandsworth Roundabout, at the top of Trinity Road, shortly after his escape. 

The man was then seen walking towards Wandsworth town centre.

Khalife escaped the Victorian jail by strapping himself to the bottom of a delivery lorry after leaving the prison kitchen in a cook’s uniform.

Elsewhere, a shop assistant also reported seeing ‘a tall, lanky dude with dark hair’, who he later claimed to recognise as Khalife from media images, enter a black coloured vehicle outside Wandsworth County Court – but police have not confirmed whether this sighting is of interest.

The witness, who was working at The Market – Putney Newsagents on Wednesday morning, heard a commotion outside the store, before seeing the man sprint across the street and get into a car on the other side of the road by traffic lights.

His manager told the Telegraph: ‘There was lots of beeping by cars and people were annoyed.

‘My friend, one of the workers at the shop, was in the shop on that morning, at around 7.30, and he went outside where he saw a man running into a black car. The man was some tall lanky dude with dark hair and there was a Bidfood van.

‘My friend didn’t see him getting out of the van but he saw him sprint across the street to the traffic lights.’

The Met Police has opened its UK Image Appeal website which allows people to submit any relevant imagery and video directly to the investigation team.

This could be CCTV, doorbell footage, mobile phone footage, or dash-cam footage.

Commander Dominic Murphy, who leads the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command, said: ‘This remains a fast-paced and dynamic investigation, but I want the public to know that a large number of officers are working extremely hard to locate Khalife.

‘We have now received more than 100 calls from the public, and we thank everyone who has contacted us with information.

‘The sighting near Wandsworth Roundabout could be very significant, and this is one of many useful lines of enquiry that officers are perusing.

‘We continue to urge the public to contact us straight away if they think they have seen Khalife or have information on his whereabouts.

‘We will continue to work closely with all our colleagues in police services across the country and other partners to trace Khalife and bring him back into custody.’

Officers continue to focus investigative efforts in London. This included search activity at Richmond Park overnight into the early hours of Friday, 8 September.

A nationwide alert put out on Wednesday has led to tightened security at ports and borders. 

The force has assessed that Khalife ‘does not pose a threat to the wider public’ but advises the public not to approach him and call 999 immediately. 

Former soldier Khalife, 21, was declared missing at 7.50am on  Wednesday. The Met was notified at 8.15am and took immediate action to track down a delivery van that had left the prison.

At 8.37, police officers stopped the van in Upper Richmond Road, near the junction with Carlton Drive. Officers spoke to the driver and carried out a thorough search. Police discovered strapping on the underside of the van.

Detectives believe Khalife was hiding underneath the van and used this strapping as part of his escape.

The force previously gave details of the route the van which they believe Khalife escaped on took after it left Wandsworth Prison, based on GPS data detectives had obtained from the vehicle.

As a result of further CCTV enquiries, it has been determined that the van took the following route upon leaving Wandsworth Prison. After reaching Wandsworth Roundabout, the van turned onto Swandon Way and the van remained on the road until turning onto Fairfield Street.

Khalife, who served in 16 Signal Regiment, whose motto is Find A Way Or Make One, is thought to have clung to the underside of the truck by fashioning straps out of the plastic covering on his cell mattress. 

Sir Mark told LBC of the escape this morning: ‘It is clearly pre-planned, the fact that he could strap himself onto the bottom of the wagon.’ 

He added a prison escape is ‘unlikely to be something you do on the spur of the moment’.

Asked if police are looking into whether it was an ‘inside job’, the commissioner said: ‘It is a question. Did anyone inside the prison help him? Other prisoners, guard staff? Was he helped by people outside the walls or was it simply all of his own creation?’

He called it ‘extremely concerning’ that Khalife is ‘on the loose’.

Asked whether he was surprised to learn that the terror suspect was in a Category B prison, Sir Mark said it did ‘seem odd’ on first inspection.

The commissioner said the hunt for Khalife is a ‘massive operation’ involving ‘well into three figures of officers’ as well as help from forces around the country and from the border force.

‘At the moment we are still really keen to get any reports from members of the public,’ he added.

It came as police chiefs involved in the Richmond Park search apologised to locals for the disruption.

The National Police Air Service tweeted: ‘To dispel some rumours that have been circulating. We were deployed to Richmond Park last night searching for escaped prisoner Daniel Khalife. 

‘Due to the size and complexity of the park this took a protracted period of time. Apologies for the noise.’

Meanwhile, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said there were questions about the ‘link between government austerity and this man escaping.’

He said: ‘There’s a question in relation to the medium and long term about the link between government austerity and this man escaping.

‘I know from my own experience, as the member of parliament previously for Tooting where Wandsworth prison is, (there are) big problems in relation to it being overcrowded and being a Victorian prison, lack of investment, lack of enough staff and those questions will need answering from the Government.’

Chief Inspector of Prisons Charlie Taylor said staff shortages at Wandsworth are ‘the source of many problems’ and that ‘in an ideal world’ the jail would be shut.

The prison’s performance has been rated a ‘serious concern’ and watchdogs issued a string of warnings about the jail in the year before the incident.

It comes as pharmacies have been urged to keep a lookout following suggestions that the ex-British Army soldier may have suffered burns to his face during his escape.

Former Scotland Yard detective Peter Bleksley told Sky News: ‘Clinging to the bottom of a vehicle, if it’s got a petrol or diesel combustion engine, it is a pretty risky thing to do, not only because of course you can lose your grip and fall on a roadway, but exhaust systems, which generally speaking run the entire length of a vehicle like that, get incredibly hot.

‘The slightest touch of that exhaust system will leave you with a vey unpleasant burn.

‘So I would suggest to anybody who works in a chemist or pharmacy or shops where medical supplies are sold – just keep your eyes out today if somebody comes in asking for advice on how to treat burns, and sourcing bandages… and the like.’

Elsewhere, CCTV footage today showed the van Khalife escaped under just 200 yards from the prison, with no sign of the suspect.

Questions continue to grow over how the suspected terrorist, who is alleged to have spied for Iran, was able to flee the Category B prison, where there have long been concerns over security.

An inmate who worked with Khalife in the jail kitchen revealed how they used to joke about jumping in a delivery lorry and driving off.

And another former prisoner revealed how staff were so overstretched they even asked him to help lead the roll call of inmates on his wing.

Meanwhile, a barrister and former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation said today it was ‘mind-boggling’ that Khalife was able to work in a kitchen with access to knives.

Jonathan Hall KC told Radio 4’s World at One programme Mr Khalife has been ‘charged with collecting information which might be useful to an enemy’ and that he should have been held in a higher security prison.

‘I would have thought someone charged with espionage should be held more securely…just based on what the authorities knew’

‘They knew he was charged with an offence under the Official Secrets Act, that’s a very serious offence… one would have thought that you would look at the advanced capabilities that might come with working for or having relations with a hostile state’ he said.

Mr Hall also warned against legislation to make all of those accused of terrorism to be placed in a category A prison.

‘I’d be worried if there was a reaction which said now every person suspected of terrorism should be categorised as a high escape risk’.

Fresh CCTV footage today shows the Bidfood lorry which Khalife used for his escape driving down a residential street just 200 yards from the jail.

There is no sight of the fugitive in the images, suggesting that he may have leapt off the vehicle immediately after it left the prison gates.

Scotland Yard revealed last night there was 65 minutes between it leaving the prison and being stopped and searched by police, meaning a huge number of possible places where Khalife might have slipped away. 

As investigators worked to unravel how he managed to pull off a Colditz-style breakout in broad daylight, more details emerged of the audacious escape.

Khalife, who police suspect used his military training to carefully plan his escape, began Wednesday morning by helping to prepare breakfast at the Victorian jail.

He turned up for duty dressed in his chef’s uniform of a white T-shirt, distinctive red and white chequered trousers and brown steel-toe boots. 

After serving breakfast to inmates and guards, he slipped out of the kitchen carrying makeshift strapping of some kind, which police have declined to describe in more detail. 

In the yard outside the kitchen building, a lorry from the wholesaler Bidfood was making a routine delivery of groceries.

When no one was looking, Khalife ducked under the sidebars of the lorry and positioned himself precariously beneath the truck’s underbelly, using the strapping to support his weight.

At around 7.30am, with the driver blissfully unaware of the stowaway, the Bidfood lorry was driven 250 yards along the road running along the inside of the 30ft perimeter wall famously scaled by Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs in 1965. Two internal security gates had to be opened to let it pass.

At 7.32am, the lorry carrying the former Royal Signals soldier rolled through the prison’s imposing Victorian gate into the open. 

It was waved past guards and CCTV cameras with another cursory inspection, with no one thinking to check underneath at any of the three security checks.

As Khalife clung on, just inches from the wheels and the spinning drive shaft, the lorry turned right on to residential Heathfield Road, then left, then left again on to the busy triple-laned A214.

Police have stressed there is no suspicion about Bidfood or its driver, and said they had been co-operating fully.

Officers either do not know or have not said at what point Khalife decided to leave his escape vehicle, or what he did next. 

But the truck embarked on a near four-mile route through Wandsworth Town and on to the South Circular A205 road heading west towards Putney.

Khalife had an 18-minute head-start before anyone even noticed his absence. He was declared missing at 7.50am, and prison officers launched an urgent search, but it was a further 25 minutes before the police were called at 8.15am – by now a full 43 minutes after he had sprung himself.

Metropolitan Police cars descended on the area, while the lorry driver was called by his company and ordered to turn around and return to the prison.

On a busy high street close to East Putney station, officers swooped on the Bidfood truck at 8.37am outside a coffee shop.

A business owner who witnessed the operation told the Mail: ‘The police were searching inside the van, underneath it, on the roof, in the cab, everywhere. 

‘At first there was one unmarked, black police car, then a van and about five police cars. They were using two dogs to search it, one inside and one underneath.’ 

He said the search lasted for two hours.

Scotland Yard Commander Dominic Murphy said last night: ‘We searched it, but we found no trace of him. But we did find strapping that meant he had been underneath.’ 

Officers were keeping an open mind as to whether Khalife was helped by accomplices, but Mr Murphy cited the fugitive’s ‘ingenuity’ and said: ‘We have some of the best military in world and he was a trained soldier.’ 

He said police officers believed Khalife – a ‘very resourceful individual’ – would have needed to plan his escape, rather than it being opportunistic.

Police refused to confirm or deny if they had recovered potentially useful CCTV during their trawl, but said there had been no sightings by members of the public, despite it being ‘a busy area of London’. 

It prompted speculation as to whether the fugitive could have arranged to be picked up by an accomplice in another vehicle.

It has been one of the biggest debates in boxing over the last two years – how do you take down Oleksandr Usyk? A monster in the ring. A man who has fought with the Ukrainian army and doesn’t know when to quit. A man who swims lengths for five hours straight. A man who throws hammers in training. A man who has never been dropped – let alone stopped – in his career. Both Derek Chisora and Anthony Joshua have tried and failed to outclass him.

On August 26, Daniel Dubois will look to go one better and his trainer, the legendary Don Charles, believes he has the secret sauce to defeat the feared pound-for-pound sensation. He feels Usyk will crumble when he gets a taste of the British heavyweight’s power.

Charles was in a bullish mood as he sat with Mail Sport in his office, next to his Pug Yard gym in Finchley.

‘I’m going to be arrogant, he said. ‘If Daniel Dubois is hitting him the way we envisage, Usyk will not survive it. Trust me on this, I’ve trained Anthony Joshua – it’s not publicly known. I worked with AJ before the Olympics and he hits hard. Joshua is a phenomenal puncher, but Dubois’ power is unmeasurable. [The game plan] is no secret. [Dubois] needs to jump on Usyk’s a**e.

‘If the Daniel Dubois that I’ve trained for the last 16 weeks in successful in the first five or six rounds, Usyk will not be in a good state because Dubois hits differently.’

But is power enough? We saw Usyk get into trouble against Joshua in their Saudi Arabia fight last year during the ninth round, but AJ couldn’t capitalise and the Ukrainian recovered and ended up bossing the remaining rounds. Charles and his team have studied Usyk’s last few fights and have taken plenty from them.

Charles was a long-time coach of Chisora’s and worked with him during his fight against Usyk in 2020. While Del Boy lost unanimously, he gave Usyk issues with his aggression. The number one takeaway is that the former cruiserweight king must be pressured constantly. Charles is a big football fan and likens Usyk to a skilled footballer. For this fight, Dubois must be like Sergio Ramos going up against a prime Lionel Messi.

‘Quite simply, you have to pressure Usyk – similarly to how Dereck did,’ he continues. ‘You don’t box Usyk, you have to dog it out with him. Once you get into that zone, you have to commit. In football, when you get a skilful footballer, you don’t give him space. You chop him down. You mark him, you barge him, you foul him. Make him uncomfortable. Usyk is a skilful player. You can’t give him room to do his thing. Take him out of that zone and break him down.

‘Joshua was very apprehensive. He had the chance and didn’t close the show. He didn’t want to gas and didn’t trust his defence. Daniel Dubois gets him in that position – he would be doomed. I’ve seen what he does. His knockout rate suggests that. When he smells blood, he goes in for it.

‘We’ve got to track Usyk. Don’t let him escape. Make the ring smaller, don’t follow him around. If he goes one way, cut him off. Keep him in one half of the ring and trap him. Daniel has the energy to punch and punch and punch. I believe we’ve got the perfect game plan to halt this guy because the minute Daniel corners him, the fight is over.’

Dubois’ team have huge confidence in their man, to such an extent that they don’t just think he will defeat Usyk – they fully believe it and talk about when, not if he becomes the proud owner of three world title belts in Poland on Saturday night. It’s a rare thing for a trainer to talk up his fighter’s chances so much, not least against a fighter who has never been beaten in his professional career – and one who has seldom looked close to being beaten.

Usyk is durable, intelligent and has a huge boxing IQ, but Charles believes he has ‘mileage’ on his clock and that his age will show when he comes up against the hard-hitting Dubois, who has stopped 18 of his 19 opponents.

‘We’re going to expose that,’ Charles says. ‘I’ve seen fighters age rapidly if the fight isn’t going their way. I think we’re about to witness that on the 26th. This is a 36-year-old man. We know the positives of Usyk, but let’s look at the negatives for a minute. He’s had over 300 amateur fights. Then he fought in the World Boxing Super Series. Then he unified the cruiserweight division. That’s a lot of mileage on that clock and a lot of injuries that are there. We are going to reactivate those injuries.

‘There’s an 11-year age gap between them. There’s a lot of areas we draw confidence in. We’re going to push him. When [Chisora] went to fight Vitali Klitschko in 2012, everyone said he was going to get killed. Dereck took him the distance and Vitali aged in that fight. He fought one more time after that and then he retired. Vasiliy Lomachenko was running rings around people, then he came across Lopez – who was bigger, stronger, younger and punches harder. We’re about to do that to Oleksandr Usyk.

‘I study boxing, I see when these things happen. It’s about to happen. We’re not just saying it. We have trained for it.’

Dubois has certainly trained hard for this, undoubtably the toughest fight of his life. The 25-year-old has been put through the mill by Charles and his team in the Sierra Nevada mountain range in Spain. He’s been running up hills and hitting pads at altitude, 2,500 feet above sea level, ripping his sparring partners apart. Charles tells me a tale of one fighter who was hit by Dubois during a session and was left screaming in pain. His bicep had been ruptured. After being sent 40 minutes down the mountain to the nearest hospital, a scan had shown that his bicep had in fact been snapped in half.

It hasn’t been all plain sailing for Dubois. ‘Dynamite’ had emerged as an unstoppable force of nature in the heavyweight division before being handed a painful first defeat at the hands of Joe Joyce three years ago, which saw him take a knee after a horrific eye injury – and branded a quitter.

After following that up with three straight wins, his career was nearly in tatters when he fell to the canvas three times in the opening round of his last fight against Kevin Lerena last December, struggling with a knee injury. He overcame that scare to brutally stop Lerena in the third round, despite barely being able to put pressure on the leg.

Charles explains the struggles Dubois – who was then working with Shane McGuigan – had with his knee in the build up to that fight and his shock that he was able to pull off the win.

‘It hasn’t been well documented but he was told prior that he needed attention to his knee,’ he goes on. ‘They didn’t know when it was going to go but it was going to go. They took a gamble and lo and behold it went in the fight. Remarkably, for a guy who was meant to be a quitter got up with one leg. Shane didn’t panic and Dubois still brutally knocked him out.

‘They were flying with half an engine and landed the plane successfully. He never should have won the fight because he couldn’t put weight on the leg. Lerena was the first name on my list to come for sparring for Daniel ahead of the Usyk fight. He refused it and I know why.’

Dubois has had his critics – especially in the wake of his defeat to Joyce – but Charles believes people will see a different side to him after his gruelling high-altitude camp. He has seen his young fighter show he is much more than just an aimless power-puncher.

‘He’s ticked every box and more. I took him into a hard, hard environment up in the mountains to take him out of his comfort zone. I’m glad he did that because now he’s going to reap the benefits of all that hard work. I’ve seen a lot, I’ve done a lot. I can suss a fight. We’re fighting a man who is very good, but very beatable.

‘I’m still finding things about this young man. He can have a ruck – I didn’t know that. He was sparring Moses Itauma, a very highly-rated fighter. They were having it off in sparring and that’s when I saw another side of Daniel that I didn’t know. There is a dog in Daniel Dubois and if he has to dog it, he can. When Moses came, he brought the dog out of Daniel. I thought, “Oh my god”. Me and my colleagues all looked at each other – we didn’t know he had that.’

This has been a turgid year for the heavyweights. Cancelled fights, failed negotiations. A lack of big match-ups the fans have craved. The usual heroes Joshua, Fury and Whyte have hardly covered themselves in glory. Dubois has a chance to light up the division again if his hand is raised this weekend. He won’t be the favourite with the bookies, but no one in his camp is concerned in the slightest. Belief can only take you so far in boxing – but as long as the game plan Charles has mapped out for Dubois is executed, he cannot see anything other than history being made.

‘The only chance we’ve been given is that Daniel is a puncher and we’ve got a punchers chance. Do you what? We’ll take that. If it’s documented that Usyk has never been dropped, we’re going to be the first to do it.

‘[Dubois] will go down in history forever and he’s about to do that. We keep reminding him about that. Mohammad Ali shook the world when he beat Sonny Liston. He repeated it again against Forman, who was untouchable at the time. It’s about to happen again. We are up for it man. Usyk said he was hungry for this fight. We are starving.’

Victoria’s Secret Angel Taylor Hill marries ‘best friend’ Daniel Fryer on Colorado ranch: ‘It was a magical fairytale and my dream wedding!’

By Cassie Carpenter For Dailymail.com

Published: 03:13 EDT, 14 June 2023 | Updated: 03:16 EDT, 14 June 2023

Royal Mail’s biggest shareholder rules out takeover bid for delivery group but warns it must ‘adapt’ to be successful

By Daily Mail City & Finance Reporter

Updated: 16:50 EDT, 28 May 2023

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Republican Party presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy has donated $10,000 to a crowdfunding effort for Daniel Penny who was charged with second-degree manslaughter for the death of a homeless schizophrenic. 

The GiveSendGo fundraising campaign – which has now soared to $2 million in donations – was set up by the 24-year-old ex-marine’s attorneys after a video emerged of him holding Jordan Neely in a chokehold on a New York City subway on May 1. 

They say it will be used to pay for the Long Island native’s legal fees and for ‘any future civil lawsuits that may arise, as well as expenses related to his defense.’ 

On May 5, Rawaswamy tweeted his opinions on the case, stating that Jordan Neely was a ‘habitual offender’ who should have ‘faced justice’ earlier. 

He went on to list a series of crimes which Neely had been arrested for in the past eight years.

He penned: ‘The moral of the Jordan Neely story isn’t complicated: he was a habitual offender who should’ve been behind bars or in a mental institution, not free to terrorize New Yorkers. If local police had been allowed to do their jobs, that man would still be alive today – in custody.

‘In 2015, Jordan Neely kidnapped a 7 year old girl. In 2019, Jordan Neely punched a 64 year old man in the face. In 2021, Jordan Neely slugged a 67 year old woman in the face as she exited the subway, breaking her nose and fracturing her orbital bone. Neely was arrested 44 times, but never faced real justice for terrorizing New Yorkers. The @ManhattanDA shares responsibility for his death for creating an anti law enforcement culture. Habitual felons like Neely should not roam freely to terrorize & prey on innocent members of our communities.’ 

On Friday, Penny was freed pending trial hours after turning himself in at a police precinct and appearing in court to answer criminal charges. He did not enter a plea.

On Sunday, the campaign page hit the £1 million mark after Florida governor Ron DeSantis shared a Twitter link to the page – showing that support for the former soldier has soared quickly. 

Many of those who have donated large sums to Penny’s cause are anonymous, including another who also made a $10,000 pledge.

They left a comment which read: ‘Thank you for protecting the citizens that day.’ 

The third highest giver, who pledged $5,000, is also anonymous.

That person wrote: ‘Do the right thing. Dan did. It’s not that tough.’

Following his arrest, Bail bondsman Ira Judelson told DailyMail.com Penny was ‘very quiet and nervous’ and was ‘respectful’. 

While Penny was charged in the aftermath— the other two men seen in the video seen holding Neely down were never named nor charged with any wrongdoing. 

Now, Penny’s family says, the Marine vet is being ‘railroaded’ by the legal system.

‘It’s disgusting,’ Justine Baldwin, Penny’s cousin, told the New York Post. ‘Here’s a young man who served our country.’

‘What about the other two gentlemen on the subway who were helping him (restrain Neely)? They haven’t even been named.’

While footage of Penny restraining Neely sparked controversy, his relatives have described him as ‘calm’ and a ‘fun kid’.

Some have attempted to depict the veteran as a privileged individual in the aftermath of the incident, but those that knew him revealed he grew up in a middle-class military family in Long Island.

‘He was always there for his family and his sisters,’ added Baldwin. ‘Danny has always been calm, he comes from a calm family.’

Neighbors reportedly added that he even lived out of a van at one time, while he previously shared a three-bedroom home with his three sisters and parents.

‘Danny was always fun and goofy and never harmed anyone,’ said the Marine’s friend Devin Marino.

‘He was always super inclusive,’ he added. ‘His family was really nice and had an open door policy.’

Neighbors who knew Penny and his family in West Islip also praised the veteran, with Marcia Mulcahy, who lived across the street from him for four years, describing him as ‘a lovely kid.’

‘The family could not have been nicer,’ she added. ‘Just look at the fundraiser to see how people feel about him.

‘We’re all contributing to it. He was just trying to help on the subway. It was obviously a scary situation and it all went wrong. But he didn’t go in there trying to hurt anyone. He was trying to help.’

Penny’s lawyer, Thomas Kenniff, revealed the veteran had been deployed twice over four years of service with the Marines, where he rose to the rank of sergeant before he was honorably discharged in 2021.