Good Morning Britain ground to a halt minutes into the ITV breakfast show as they issued a major update from Northern Ireland. On Monday (June 8), choas ensured after an attempted stabbing murder of Stephen Ogilvie in Belfast, threats to kill an NHS radiographer and possession of a knife. Since then, it has descended into a place of violence, with houses, vehicles and businesses set alight across the city.

Fireworks were thrown at homes and flares targeted properties, while frightened residents, including children, were evacuated. On Thursday morning (June 11), presenters Kate Garraway and Paul Brand returned to the airwaves to discuss the biggest stories hitting the headlines.

Minutes into the morning programme, they welcomed senior news correspondent Jonathan Swain to the show, who reported live from the Irish city. As he walked through the streets littered with smoking vehicles and firework shells, he revealed that two police officers were injured after being hit by a petrol bomb on the second night of unrest in Northern Ireland.

Meanwhile, other officers armed with riot gear charged gangs of masked rioters as they threw missiles and started fires. He began: “It’s been another night of violence, which means another morning of clear-up. Take a look behind me, you can see a burnt-up vehicle here, we’ve got scars on the streets and yet a deeply divided community here.

“It was the knife attack on Monday that was the catalyst, and since then, we’ve had questions about immigration in Northern Ireland. This was the main focus of the standoff between the police and the rioters last night.”

As he walked down the street, he described the conflict that ensued overnight. Mr Swain explained: “We’re about eight or nine miles north of Belfast here at a place called Glengormley, and water cannons were used for the first time in these sorts of riots, trying to control the crowd and trying to push them back.

“At the end of this road, there is a hotel used by migrants, and that’s where the protesters were aiming for, but the police managed to pull them back here. There were other protests across Northern Ireland, anti-immigration protests, though largely peaceful.

“But certainly not here, and certainly not the other night when we saw people’s homes being burnt, people having to flee their burning houses. There were campaigns online trying to target the homes of migrants, but local people born and bred here in Northern Ireland were caught up in the violence.”

It comes after the suspect in the Belfast stabbing incident was named. Hadi Alodid, 30, appeared on Wednesday at Belfast Magistrates’ Court charged with the attempted stabbing murder of Stephen Ogilvie in Belfast, threats to kill an NHS radiographer on the same day and possession of a knife.

During the hearing in the city in Northern Ireland, Alodid, with an address at Duncairn Avenue in Belfast, appeared via videolink. He refused legal representation, the judge was told, and made no reply to charges which were put to him through an interpreter. A detective told the court that a man injured in the stabbing attack on Monday has lost his left eye.