A former minister has been described as “heroic” after he intervened to help a homeless man who was being attacked near Parliament.

David Davis, who served as Brexit secretary under Theresa May before he resigned over her deal, told Sky News he was leaving a restaurant in the area on Tuesday evening when he saw a “boot connect with a head and a spray of blood”.

Asked whether he was fearful to intervene while the man was being attacked, he said: “I didn’t think about it, I just did it.”

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Mr Davis described how one of the attackers “backed off” when he tried to help the man, but the other “took a swing at me a couple of times”.

“I just saw these two guys on the other side of the road and I saw one boot connect with a head and a spray of blood,” he said.

After the attack, Mr Davis took the man to his flat, where he slept on his sofa overnight before the MP took him to A&E to receive treatment.

“He was still bleeding in the morning so I took him to A&E. They looked over him and they seemed happy with him,” he said.

‘Ice calm’

Guto Harri, Boris Johnson’s former director of communications who was with Mr Davis at the time, told Sky News it was “horrific”.

He said the attack involved “two nasty violent guys kicking a homeless man on the floor… barely 500 metres from Parliament”.

Mr Harri added: “They stopped briefly when we ran at them and ice-calm David took control extremely quickly and avoided the repeated attempts by one of the attackers to hit him without fighting back.

“When they finally left he kindly offered a bed for the victim and took him to A&E first thing. Heroic and very decent.”

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Reflecting on what happened, Mr Davis said: “I’ve intervened a few times in the past and it hasn’t always gone so well, but this one had no cost.”

Mr Davis was first elected in 1987 as the Conservative MP for Boothferry, later known as Haltemprice and Howden.

He stood to be Tory leader in the 2005 leadership election which was won by David Cameron.

He also served as Tory party chair from 2001 to 2002.