Good Morning Britain’s weather forecaster Alex Beresford interrupted a studio debate on the knife crime epidemic this morning, making a passionate speech about the breakdown in the relationship between police and the black community. 

As he waited to give the weather forecast, the GMB host interrupted the chairman of the Policing Federation of England and Wales who suggested building more prisons as a solution to Britain’s increased knife crime levels.

“Prison doesn’t work though, prison does not work.

“Listen, I’ve grown up in some of these communities that you guys are talking about, and prison is not a deterrent.

“Some of these boys, they don’t fear prison. If you don’t change the environment, you won’t change anything.”

He then went on to address the panel invited on to discuss Prime Minister Theresa May’s denial in a link between police numbers and knife crime: “All of you guys over there, you’ve benefitted from the environment that you’ve grown up in.

“You’ve benefitted from being in this work environment, I’ve benefitted from it.”

Beresford then went on to address the issues with the Stop and Search policy: “Often, you get the innocent young black boy that gets stopped by the police and gets frustrated, and we’ve all seen them on social media where they end up getting arrested because they can’t control their anger, because they’re trying to say that they’re innocent.”

The 38-year-old Bristolian continued to share his experience of being unfairly pulled over by police.

“Before I started this job, I got pulled over quite a lot, and it used to frustrate me. You know, I got pulled up just because I had my hood up in the winter time.

“And the office said ‘Why are you driving with your hood up?’

“I said ‘because it’s minus one outside, why can’t I have my hood up in my car?”

Following the programme, The Sun characterised Alex’s  intervention as a “ranting outburst”, for which his co-host Piers Morgan defended him.

Morgan tweeted: “It wasn’t a ‘ranting outburst’ – it was a very measured, passionate, informed & important contribution to the knife crime debate.”