Traffic on the northbound M1 was forced to a halt on Easter Monday after all lanes were blocked by a gang of men armed with baseball bats, bottles and knives who attacked two people in another car, police said yesterday.

Motorists watched as four cars that had been travelling in a convoy stopped across the northbound motorway near junction 15 in Northamptonshire, blocking it completely.

Up to 15 men got out and milled around on the road. Four or five of them descended on a Ford Focus they had forced to stop and then attacked the car, the driver and a front-seat passenger.

Northamptonshire Police said that they believed that the attack, which took place at about 1.15pm, must have been planned, although the occupants of the Focus told officers that it was unprovoked and they had no idea why they had been singled out.

The police are trying to discover if there was an earlier incident before the attack that could have provoked road rage, and are studying closed-circuit television footage from the motorway.

A spokesman for Northamptonshire Police said that it was unlikely the attack had not been planned. “We are looking to see if there had been some sort of road-rage incident before this particular incident took place,” he said.

The four Asian men in the Focus were travelling north when they noticed that they were being followed by a lime-green Rover 200.

They were flashed and pelted with bottles, which bounced off the car, before the Rover cut them up and forced them to stop. The hard shoulder and the roadway itself were then blocked by three other vehicles — a black Audi A3, a black Toyota Prius and possibly a red Audi A3.

A crowd of black men, aged between 20 and 30, and wearing black clothing, gold chains and bracelets, spilt on to the road as the attack began.

The driver and his passengers were not badly hurt and the attackers, who are thought to have been driving from London, got back into their cars and sped away.

Northamptonshire Police alerted other forces farther along the M1 but the convoy was not spotted again.

Officers were examining film yesterday from motorway cameras and were carrying out checks on registration numbers yesterday.

Northamptonshire Police said that other similar incidents may have happened elsewhere on the motorway.

“We don’t know if there were any other incidents like this anywhere else on the motorway, but if there were then we urge people to come forward with information,” a spokesman said.

Police appealed for potential witnesses to the incident to contact them on 08453 700700.

— As many as 70 per cent of motorists have been a victim of car crime, a survey indicated today. Many of the crimes went unreported as owners believed that nothing could be done, the online poll by What Car? magazine suggested.

The statistics related to people who had had their car stolen, broken into or vandalised.

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