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Belfast descended into chaos last night after a Sudanese asylum seeker was charged with attempted murder following a sickening knife attack. LBC’s Crime Correspondent Andy Hughes speaks to Shelagh Fogarty live from Belfast. Listen to the full show on the all-new LBC App: https://app.af.lbc.co.uk/btnc/thenewlbcapp #shelaghfogarty #crime #debate #belfast #riots #news #politics #LBC LBC is the home of live debate around news and current affairs in the UK. Join in the conversation and listen at https://www.lbc.co.uk/ Sign up to LBC’s weekly newsletter here: https://l-bc.co/signup
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0:00
Andy, I can see you're standing just alongside one of the cars that was completely burnt out
0:05
on a terrace street yesterday, along with several houses. Tell us what you've learned since you got there, what people have been telling you since you got there
0:13
So we're in East Belfast right now, and this is at the very heart of where the disorder was
0:19
Just up on that road, that's where you saw those extremely visceral images of the bus being set alight
0:25
But the violence descended into side streets like this. and many homes were burned
0:32
And let's just show you a bit of the damage that we've seen in this street
0:36
This car completely burned out. And this is just one of many
0:42
There's another one here and there's another one there. And then let's just show you some of the damages
0:47
to the house that the firebombs were doing. And the thing is, Sheila
0:52
I was actually here in this street last night while this was going on
0:55
This was a very different scene. There were hundreds and hundreds of older men, younger men and boys, all wearing black, all masked up and all wearing hoods
1:06
And they were here for one purpose and one purpose only. And that was to commit violence
1:11
And as you can see, they completed their mission. A young, a Senegalese man called Hedi al-Adid, he has appeared in court charge with attempted murder
1:22
And Stephen Ogleve, he's the victim. He has suffered horrendous injuries to his left eye
1:30
He has lost his left eye and also suffered injuries to his neck and his back
1:35
And I notice on the street that you're on that it's narrow
1:39
The terraced houses are very close together. And I imagine that when those cars went up in flames, as they clearly did
1:46
because they're just gutted bits of metal now, that those houses very easily could catch those flames on their doors
1:52
their windows, their woodwork, their brick. Well, not so much the brickwork, but that's why so many people left their houses very quickly indeed
1:59
I mean, it looks to me like a miracle nobody died in those fires. I know, I know. It is unbelievable
2:04
And we thought that and we feared that last night when we saw the scenes here
2:09
I mean, loads of windows on this street have been boarded up. I've just been speaking to a family there. They've got two young children
2:16
The flames went up and the house next door to them was firebombed
2:21
They are lucky to be here and they are absolutely terrified They are now loading their car with all the kids toys because they too scared to stay here I noticed that the pavements on that road are red white and blue and there a big union flag at
2:34
the far end of the road as well. It's interesting to see this isn't it? This is in part anyway
2:42
a kind of Anglo nationalism at play in the case of some of those rioters for sure isn't it
2:51
Yeah, absolutely. So this is a loyalist area, but we're told that people from the Catholic and Green area of Belfast were actually invited here
3:00
And this is the first time in living memory that that has ever happened
3:04
Invited to what? To riot? Invited to riot and join together. This is the first time that both sides of the conflict, from the Troubles, have come together for a common purpose
3:15
It's not the United Ireland people had in mind, is it, when they talk about United Ireland? It's certainly not that
3:22
It's certainly not. And the fear for people here, I mean, we've seen scores and scores of families just loading up cars
3:28
They're just leaving in their droves. And the real fear here is that there's going to be more violence tonight
3:34
We do know that there's been three arrests so far, but, I mean, surely there has to be many, many more
3:40
Well, I don't know whether you had the chance to listen to the Chief Constable and the Northern Ireland Secretary giving a press conference around midday
3:46
and the chief constable was being incredibly firm about continuing to arrest people
3:53
put their images up online so they can be identified. But as you say, if many of them are masked, that's going to be made harder
3:59
and they know what they're doing when they fully mask up like that. They don't want to be identified
4:04
But he's insistent that they will find out who they are because they know some of them already
4:09
Well, it's going to be a difficult job because they all dressed exactly the same for a reason
4:14
and that is because it is nearly impossible for police to identify them
4:18
when they all look the same. Interestingly, last night, Sheila, there was hardly a police officer in sight here
4:25
and I spoke to a contact and they said that their tactic was just to stand back and allow it to happen
4:31
and they thought if they engaged with the rioters, then that would just inflame things
4:36
However, at one point I did see the police storm in and this was when the houses were being fired on
4:43
Well, they came and saved people, didn't they? They had to do that, yeah. Well they tried to but they couldn get near They couldn even leave their vans because the rioters just turned on the vans and started attacking the vans So they had to retreat within minutes But families just got themselves out then
4:57
I did see video of a family being helped into one of the police vans by riot officers
5:02
but I presume they got themselves out enough to be able to do that. That was several hours after the firebombing started
5:09
Initially, the police couldn't get anywhere near. The ambulances couldn't get near
5:13
The fire engines couldn't get near. And I know there's lots of imagery of originally foreign nationals in lots of those houses
5:21
but the Chief Constable, again, was stressing it isn't just foreign nationals and immigrants who live in those houses
5:28
It's Northern Irish people who've been in Northern Ireland for decades, centuries with their families
5:35
and that this was an attack on the whole of that society, not just a part of it
5:39
That's exactly right. and the family I was just speaking to there, they said that at least three families
5:44
who've lived the year their whole lives had to leave and their homes have now been burned down
5:50
They said some properties from asylum seekers and some cars from asylum seekers were targeted
5:56
but the collateral damage, several families, the whole community is being affected
6:01
And I did speak to other members of the community who weren't taking part in the rioting
6:07
and they were disgusted at what they were saying. and as ever there's information such as the stuff the police have been putting out and again the
6:15
chief constable said he will put out as much as he can within the bounds of the law because obviously the case is active now that the suspect has been charged and appeared in court um he's
6:24
going to be held in custody for a month isn't he until the next phase of that that investigation and
6:28
that the criminal justice system but it's it's worth remembering isn't it that information as
6:34
well as misinformation is flying around we hear that schools uh many schools are closing early
6:39
to get kids home and safe before anything might might kick off um have you heard much about
6:46
businesses because there's lots online suggesting that businesses are closing as well now yesterday
6:51
the assistant chief constable was at pains to say no we're not advising anyone to do that
6:55
normal normal normal in the hope that normal would prevail but of course normal didn't prevail
7:00
last night and they will be desperately hoping it will tonight. Sheila, everything is shut around here, even in the city centre where we're staying
7:10
Half the shops are shut half the restaurants are shut Everyone is just hunkering down and praying that this violence doesn come to them And you talk about misinformation We told that there several posts now going out talking about more violence today
7:24
We're speaking to sources and they're saying that these are driven by AI and they're not even real
7:29
And they're just, again, trying to get people out and forced. Well, it's an interesting expression used there, driven by AI
7:37
I mean, there's a real fear, isn't there, here, that the human hand is missing
7:43
and yet the human hand is what ends up on the streets causing the violence. Yeah, I mean, that's a big fear here
7:49
And this is something that the authorities and the police are struggling to deal with
7:54
How can you combat the wealth of information, the sheer scale of it being humped out
8:02
And even if it's fake, it doesn't matter. People are believing it
8:05
Yeah, and I think it's worth, isn't it, just stepping back a tiny bit
8:09
and just reminding ourselves what it is we're looking at here. We're looking at gangs of rioters, yobs, idiots, whatever you want to call them, going out, targeting people's homes and firebombing people out of their homes in Britain
8:27
i know and i spoke to um one senior officer yesterday and in a kind of resigned way he just
8:37
said this is this is the world we live in now it's 2026 and this is the world that they are
8:43
operating in which i found a deeply depressing um thing to say and and the questions abound i know
8:51
your focus is crime and the upshot of crime but there's a lot of politics around this as well
8:55
isn't there Andy and you know the the reality is that uh immigration and people's feelings about
9:01
immigration and migration and asylum seeking and illegal immigration as well um is is it's render
9:10
it's rending communities apart in some places isn't it it certainly is and this has certainly
9:15
been happening here certainly in the last 12 months uh incredibly um a year ago yesterday
9:22
there was another riot when two young romanian men were charged with the rape of a school girl
9:28
that actually that case actually went away but that was a year to the day 12 months on and we're
9:33
still seeing the same thing but this is clearly on a much larger scale than we saw last year but
9:38
there's no doubt about it you speak to people here in immigration there's a big issue and one
9:42
they're worried about thank you very much indeed andy
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