A MAN has been arrested over a racially-aggravated incident in Bridport town centre.

Staff at Bridport Kebab House in East Street were allegedly verbally abused with racist language during the incident, which happened at around 9.30pm on Sunday.

Insp. Mike Darby said: "Members of staff from the kebab house called police about a man, who appeared to be drunk, being abusive and trying to damage property.

"Police attended and a scuffle ensued. The man was detained for a racially aggravated public order offence where it's believed he used racist language to [verbally abuse] staff.

"A man, who is in his 40s, was arrested after confronting police officers at the time."

This latest incident follows a racial attack near the kebab house at around midnight on Valentine's Day.

In that incident a 27-year-old Bridport man was taken to hospital with broken ribs and facial injuries.

Speaking about the both incident, Insp Darby said: “This is the second racial incident to happen in Bridport in the last two weeks.

“Both times it has been on a Saturday night and alcohol has been involved.

“We take all allegations of hate crime extremely seriously and look to prosecute people who commit these offences.

“While we have had two in the last two weeks, these are very rare in our community.”

Bridport town councillor David Rickard said: "Clearly it's concerning. If it was the start of a trend it would be very worrying and would be something we'd need to take very seriously.

"People feel safe walking the streets of Bridport, and anything that would damage that would be very sad and, I would say, unacceptable.

Town and district councillor David Tett said: "To have two incidents of this nature in the last two weeks is very worrying.

"What does it spell for the future? It's alarming and upsetting.

"I will be making enquiries into this to find out what's going on."