Violent clashes at anti-mosque demonstration

Nine people were arrested after far-right demonstrators clashed with police at a protest against a planned mosque in Dudley.

West Midlands Police said they had deployed a "very significant" force of officers to separate 2,000 supporters of the far-right English Defence League from 1,500 counter-protestors from the Unite Against Fascism organisation.

The EDL, a group which stages protests against "radical Islam", had marched to a car park on the outskirts of the West Midlands overlooking the proposed site for a new mosque.

Scuffles broke out with police when EDL supporters broke down wire fences penning them in and ran through nearby streets. Police said they were able to prevent them reaching the UAF rally.

It was the latest confrontation between the EDL and the UAF to have ended in violence. Last month police arrested 74 people at a similar demonstration in Bolton.

The EDL sprang up last year after a small group from a local Muslim community staged a protest in the southern town of Luton against soldiers returning from Iraq.