Riot 'scum' trying to murder RUC officers

Those behind the trouble in north Belfast are "scum" who are trying to murder RUC officers, according to RUC Chief Constable Sir Ronnie Flanagan.

Sir Ronnie backed earlier claims by other RUC officers of paramilitary involvement in the riots and repeated assertions that violence on the loyalist side had been orchestrated.

The troublemakers, he said, were people "whose mission in life is to fly flags and strut about in balaclavas thinking they are either Ireland's finest or Ulster's finest".

Catholic parents in the Ardoyne district have been prevented from taking their children to school for a second day by loyalist protestors.