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A SICKENING racist attack on a street busker was captured on film by a documentary crew who had been interviewing him just seconds before.

The stunned busker, known as Melo, was first verbally abused and then punched and kicked by two racist thugs­ as he desperately attempted to fend off his attackers until the police arrive.

The incident will be shown tomorrow night in scenes that will shock viewers of The Street, a BBC Scotland series following people working and playing in Glasgow’s Sauchiehall Street.

Politicians voiced their dismay at the violence last night and said the footage should spark a national debate about racism in Scotland.

Melo is first seen being interviewed as he busks alone, saying: “My mother said to me to do things on your own and you will be fine.

“If along the way you find friends that’s good but if not, it’s life.”

But as he chats in the street, a voice can be heard off-camera saying “black b******”.

Heavily built and bald, thug Francis Muir, wearing a pink shirt, approaches the busker and says: “What about the f****** British or the homeless?

“You are taking the f****** p***. That’s what you are doing. You are sitting here milking our country for thousands, ya f****** black b******.”

Melo tries to calm the situation, muttering: “OK, thank you very much.”

But Muir says: “You are trying to say you’re not? Much do you make sitting here busking every f***** day? You’re making thousands.”

He adds to Melo, who, the documentary points out, does not claim benefits: “I pay taxes every f****** month. Hundreds of pounds to keep you in the f****** country.

And he gesticulates aggressively at him, saying: “You are a black b******, admit it.”

Muir’s friend, wearing a blue shirt, approaches Melo who pushes him away, saying: “Stay away from me, man. Seriously.”

(Image: BBC)

The man then charges forward and punches Melo on the top of the head.

Melo stands up to the pair, saying: “If you want a problem with me, you got it. Go away, go away the both of you, seriously.”

The man with the blue shirt tries to punch him but Melo dodges the blow and the drunken thug ends up punching the metal shutter ­covering a shop window instead.

Melo continues: “Get away from me, ­seriously.”

But Muir replies: “You are a black b******.”

Melo says: “I am black and proud. You try me. Seriously, I am not joking.”

As Muir circles the busker menacingly, his pal holds his hand out and tries to trick Melo, into shaking it but he says: “Leave me alone.”

The blue-shirted thug throws another punch but falls over as Melo dodges.

The busker tells him: “That’s what you get for being stupid.” He pleads again: “Leave me alone, the both of you.”

He grabs the metal trolley he uses for moving his music gear around and holds it up to the pair, saying: “Get away from me. Any more from you and I will batter you both to the floor.

“Go. I need to defend myself because you guys are p****** me off.”

Amid a barrage of insults from the pair, Melo says: “I know I am black and I am proud.”

Other revellers attempt to intervene – but the blue-shirted man aims a kick at Melo, misses and almost loses his balance.

Police arrive and the pair are held by officers. Melo can be heard telling an onlooker: “I am all right, brother.”

He appears stunned by events, and can be heard saying: “What have I done?”, adding: “It’s not just Glasgow - it’s everywhere you go.”

The two men are led into a police van, with Muir turning to Melo and saying: “All this for a f*****. See you, ya black b******, I’m going to punch your **** in.”

A police officer speaks to Melo, advising him to “chill out”.

He replies: “It’s all right, I am chilled.” The incident has lasted a little over three minutes and the show moves on. Muir, 35, of Glasgow, was convicted of racially-­aggravated harassment and jailed for four months in April 2012 for his part in the incident. His accomplice cannot be identified for legal reasons.

(Image: BBC)

Later in the documentary, made by ­production company Friel Kean who were also behind controversial series The Scheme in ­Kilmarnock’s Onthank estate, viewers are told the fight has brought back memories for Melo of the time he arrived in Glasgow from Portugal around 15 years previously.

He said: “It was the second or third day. Someome said to me, ya f****** black b******. It was a kid of 20 or so. Since then it has been like that every day.”

He is later seen rolling a joint as he beds down on a sofa in a friend’s flat, having been evicted from his own flat the night before. The show comes back to him later, as he tells police ­probing the race attack on him: “Every day I get called ‘black b******’.”

He tells how people come up to him and throw his music gear all over the street.

As Melo gives his statement to police, another fight breaks out yards away and the officers have to intervene.

Melo says: “I am feeling sick. Since ’98 I have been abused every day. That’s why you feel like leaving. Where I will go? I don’t know. But I would be messing up everything because of other people, so no way – it’s not happening.”

Despite his defiance, it’s understood Melo quit Scotland after the documentary was filmed in 2012 and now lives in England. Melo spent three years busking in Lisbon, Portugal, before arriving in Glasgow in the late 1990s.

He is understood to be originally from Angola. He said in an interview in 2001: “’I’m a war refugee”, adding of his busking: “We’re not begging. If anything, we’re providing a service.”

MSP Graeme Pearson, Labour’s Shadow Justice secretary and a former police chief, said: “The documentary has caught the type of

incident which, sadly, occurs probably most evenings somewhere in Scotland.

“It is symptomatic of a culture we need to tackle, in terms of racism and sectarianism – although at least those responsible in this instance were arrested.

“We need to come to terms with what is happening on our streets and change it.

“The reality is that people who belong to vulnerable groups, and people from different cultures, they know the truth – and they are victimised most weeks, if not daily.”

The Street is on BBC1 tomorrow at 10.35pm