Revealed: "Beirut" in A&E during Lozells race riots

Jan 3 2009 by Alison Dayani, Birmingham Mail

THE terrifying extent of the Lozells race riots on frontline NHS staff has been revealed after a hospital security boss likened it to “a modern day Beirut”.

Peter Finch, chief security adviser for City Hospital, in Winson Green, said the violence left nurses and doctors terrified as they battled to treat warring patients while gangs gathered outside threatening to attack.

It is only today that the full impact of the riots has been revealed, in an interview with the Birmingham Mail.

Security bosses are now setting in place more improvements at the Dudley Road casualty department following on from lessons learned during the riots in October 2005, when two men were killed, a police officer was shot in the leg and around 40 people were hospitalised during the disturbances.

It was sparked by unfounded reports that a 14-year-old girl African Caribbean had been raped by a group of Asian men.

“During the Lozells riots, we had the ambulance control room thinking we had three patients but we actually had 24 because police and people were bringing them in themselves too,” said Mr Finch, a former police officer.

“Modern day Beirut is exactly what the A&E looked like.