A senior police officer has revealed he is too scared to travel on his own late at night after being assaulted on a train in Feltham.

Chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation Inspector Glen Smyth was left with blood running down his face after trying to arrest the drunk, abusive and aggressive Ian Keith Bird.

He said: "I don't feel like I could be on my own on late night trains and I have had time off work.

"I felt extremely shaken and don't feel I want to be alone.

"I'm very reluctant to try to resolve matters myself and would be very wary of intervening alone again."

Bird, 27, from Bracknell was sitting in the first class carriage on the Waterloo to Reading service on the night on the England versus Germany football match at Wembley. He had consumed nine or 10 pints of cider and began swearing and criticising police and after being told to calm down by Insp Smyth and shouted "What are you going to do, arrest me?"

He assaulted the police officer as he was being arrested and restrained but managed to break free. He fled the train at the next stop in Staines where he was caught by waiting officers.

Magistrates gave Bird a four month sentence suspended for 18 months and ordered him to receive supervision for his alcohol problems.

A spokesman for British Transport Police said: "It is a natural reaction and it is a sad indictment that a police officer feels that way.

"He has that right to feel nervous but it is a one in a million chance of something unfortunate happening.

"His comments are of those a person who has been injured and assaulted and would be the same as if he were a lawyer or a teacher.

If you get assaulted it is only natural to be wary of returning to the scene of where the act was committed."