Police study CCTV over violent city centre protests
POLICE were today studying CCTV footage in a bid to identify more of the hooligans involved in the violent clashes.
West Midlands Police said that 90 people had already been arrested as members of the anti-Islamic extremist group the English Defence League and those opposed to their views clashed on the streets.
The number of people detained, all men aged between 16 and 39, dwarfed the 33 arrests made when similar rival rallies erupted into violence on August 8.
Troublemakers rampaged through parts of the city centre, brandishing sticks and hurling bricks at massed ranks of riot police.
While West Midlands Police could not ban a static protest, Chief Constable Chris Sims had authorised the use of Section 14 of the Public Order Act to restrict when, where and how people could protest and how many could be involved.
However, before the scheduled protest, members of the English Defence League, some of whom had travelled from Luton and Bristol, met at the Figure of Eight pub on Broad Street at lunchtime and began drinking.
By 2pm around 70 members of the EDL, some with dogs, made their way to Victoria Square where a separate group of people opposed to their presence had gathered, sparking clashes.
At the height of Saturday’s disturbances up to a hundred EDL protesters were held inside Bennett’s pub in Bennett’s Hill while it was besieged by a mob. Elsewhere more than 20 men were arrested on a vandalised bus in Digbeth High Street after being shepherded on to it by police.
About 45 supporters of the right wing protest were arrested and a similar number of arrests were made of those opposing their views.
Police described it as “sporadic” scenes of disorder and said trouble was confined to the Bennett’s Hill and upper New Street areas and shoppers in the Bullring area were unaffected.
Leisha Brookes, from the EDL, said they were a multi-faith group “protesting against Sharia Law and the acceptance by our Government of Islamic extremism” but witnesses claimed they heard supporters shouting ant-Islamic abuse.
