TV dating show contestant finds love on motorway

Richie Woodmason failed to find a partner on the show but has since settled down with his girlfriend Sarah

A participant in a reality TV dating experiment who failed to find love on the show has told of how he found it on the side of the M5 instead.

Richie Woodmason, 31, from Cheltenham, is appearing in new Channel 4 programme called The Honesty Box - an experiment where the hopeful singles are regularly tested by a lie detector test to determine their true feelings.

While he failed to find a partner on the show, he said he managed to meet girlfriend Sarah after spotting her broken down on the motorway.

"I was just driving along and saw this beautiful, tall, blonde-haired woman on the hard shoulder and I thought 'I'll pull over and change her tyre for her'," he said.

Mr Woodmason met his girlfriend Sarah after she broke down on the M5

"So I changed her tyre for her and she gave me her number at the end," he added.

"She's amazing, she's such an incredible woman - lovely, down-to-earth and funny as well."

The new series, currently running on Channel 4, challenges a group of participants to find a match in "Truetopia" - a villa in Cyprus - but with the catch they will each have to face a lie detector test, with the risk of reducing a £100,000 prize fund if they are found to be lying.

Mr Woodmason said the show was a great opportunity to meet new people

Sarah Garwood, 36, who is a home cinema designer, said "no-one believes" how they met when she tells people.

She said: "It was the middle of November at 7.00 at night and my tyre had exploded on the way to work.

"I was stood there, about to call my brother, and then Richie pulled up in his truck.

"I was absolutely freezing - and I'd only been there two minutes. He asked me if I wanted help changing the tyre, and got to work.

"He had such a friendly demeanour - and it helps that he's quite good-looking - so I wasn't worried at all.

"He wanted to go for a coffee at the service station but I had to work, so I gave him my number."

'Great opportunity'

Mr Woodmason told BBC Radio Gloucestershire he had been scouted for the programme via Instagram and thought "stuff it, why not?" when he was contacted.

"If you don't take the risk, you lose the chance," he said.

On his experience on the show, Mr Woodmason described it as a "pressure cooker" and "stressful at times".

"You are being filmed all the time. There is a little bit within yourself where you just think I've got to watch what I say at times.

"You can't be switched on all the time," he said.

However, he said the show was a great opportunity to meet new people.

"It was a great chance to make new friends, new relationships that I feel like you don't necessarily get the chance to make in normal walks of life."