AN off-duty police officer suffered severe facial injuries and cuts after being attacked with a skateboard. The British Transport Police officer was attacked in front of travellers as he walked along the platform at Biggleswade Station last Thursday night

AN off-duty police officer suffered severe facial injuries and cuts after being attacked with a skateboard.

The British Transport Police officer was attacked in front of travellers as he walked along the platform at Biggleswade Station last Thursday night.

He is believed to have broken up a row on a train travelling from London between a couple and a man.

When the train stopped at Biggleswade at 11pm the three people involved in the rumpus followed the officer along the platform where he was attacked.

BTP say the officer was attacked from behind and struck on the head with a skateboard which had been taken by one of the men from a youth standing on the platform.

The officer, say BTP, was also hit in the face and body with the skateboard which was returned to the youth before the three people involved in the attack fled from the station.

A passenger waiting on the platform alerted police and the officer was taken to Bedford Hospital South Wing by ambulance suffering from a broken nose and lacerations to his face and arms. The wound in the back of his head required 14 stitches.

After treatment he was allowed back to his home in Biggleswade where he remained off duty this week while he recovered from his injuries.

The entire attacked was picked up on the station's CCTV.

"This was an unprovoked attack on an off-duty officer who has been left with nasty injuries to his face," said a senior BTP officer in Peterborough where the investigation into the incident is being carried out.

"He will obviously be off work for some time and we are appealing to anyone who was on the station that night who saw the incident to contact us immediately.

"We have also spoken to the boy whose skateboard was used in the attack at his home in Biggleswade."

Anyone who was on Biggleswade station at 11pm on Thursday night should contact BTP on a freephone number 0800 40 50 40.

* This week BTP officers arrested one woman and a man in Biggleswade and both were released on bail pending further inquiries. Police say they are still hunting another man in the Biggleswade area.