Five police officers have been recognised for their role in tackling an 'appalling, violent and unprovoked assault'. 

Five Thames Valley Police officers have received awards for their "exceptional performance in supporting the force" following an unprovoked attack that took place on the side of the M40 in August 2020.

At the time of the incident, PCs Martin Woodford and Phil Duthie, both officers from the Roads Policing Unit, stopped a speeding Renault Clio between junctons eight and nine of the M40 in Oxfordshire.

The driver of the vehicle, Morgan Culshaw, 28, proceeded to assault the two officers, punching and stamping on PC Woodford, rendering him partially unconscious, and biting and punching PC Duthie in the head.

Culshaw, of Pennywell Drive in Oxford, also stole PC Woodford's incapacitant spray and sprayed the officer with it.

PC Mark Sanders was among the officers who then chased Culshaw up the M40, following the 28-year-old down the wrong side of the hard shoulder as a warning to other motorists. 

The driver later crashed into a ditch and fled the scene on foot before being arrested by the armed officers.

He was found guilty by a jury of two counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, dangerous driving, theft and possession of a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence and was sentenced to six years in prison at Oxford Crown Court on August 19, 2021.

Chief Inspector Chris Spellerberg, of the Roads Policing Unit, described the attack as "an appalling, violent and unprovoked assault". 

He added: "Culshaw put our officers and other road users in serious danger, driving the wrong way down the motorway, making every effort to evade police, stealing police captor spray and inflicting serious assaults on both PCs Duthie and Woodford.

“Our officers genuinely feared for their lives as they attempted to restrain Culshaw on the side of a busy live running motorway. Nothing can ever justify the violence that Culshaw inflicted on PCs Woodford and Duthie that day.”

The chief inspector added that the sentence of six years' imprisonment highlighted how seriously the trial judge took the offences.

“Police officers go to work to serve our communities and should expect to return home to their families safe and uninjured. I am really pleased that they were both able to return to work after such a horrific ordeal.”