A second Nine reporter has been attacked while reporting on protests over the death of US man George Floyd.
Europe correspondent Ben Avery was ambushed by crowds while on-air, reporting on protests happening in London on Thursday morning.
While speaking to Karl Stefanovic and Allison Langdon on Today just after 5.30am, Avery and his camera operator Cade Thompson were grabbed by angry crowds and forced to flee.
"A bit of a clash with us here at the moment," Avery can be heard saying.
"OK, guys. What's happened, we've been trying to walk away from the danger here. It's been following us," he said.
Avery and his camera operator then appeared to run through an underpass from where they had been standing near the Houses of Parliament.
Langdon and Stefanovic then took over from the studio, with Stefanovic saying; "That just goes to show how dangerous it is for our reporters, for all journalists on the street at the moment trying to cover these riots when emotions are running so high.
"It's good to see you have police there now.
"Ben's dropped his microphone.
"I spoke to Ben about 10 minutes ago. It was peaceful then, but it was just teetering and one thing that really struck me about what Ben said was the police are outnumbered here.
"They are drastically outnumbered."
Speaking about the incident about an hour later, Avery said "it was a bit of a shock".
"We are were getting a little bit of grief from one or two in particular who took exception to us being there," Avery told Today.
"As soon as we started to go on air you see Cade's camera starts to tilt down because they are pulling his camera down.
"Then we saw someone come off to the side and take my microphone out of my hand and there was a group of dozens of these protesters just chasing after us down the road."
Avery said he and Thompson "bolted" towards parliament to where a large group of police were standing.
"We realised that our security guard was still in amongst all of that crowd. He was taking on about, I think, 15 people at one stage. We didn't want to run off too far because he was still there."
The experience showed how fast the situation could turn, Avery said.
"It can turn quickly and it can turn no matter how many police are around, we came to learn.
"It felt like there was a police officer for every single protester there at that stage but it didn't make much difference. They were just so angry and they were so after us at that stage that even one of police said to me there is not much they could do."
Avery said that even with a security guard stationed with them, "we felt quite unsafe".
"We had bottles flying around, at one stage one of the bottles hit me in the face as I was running off.
"It was pretty scary really. You can only imagine what it's like in the US at the moment where they are dealing with this all the time."
Tensions had been simmering down following an earlier incident at the Black Lives Matter rally in London. Footage showed police and protesters clash outside Downing Street as Prime Minister Boris Johnson gave a press conference.
But local reporters said that things soon calmed "significantly", and that the incident was an exception on the largely peaceful day. As of 6.45pm local time (3.45am AEST), the crowd outside Downing Street had reportedly thinned to a few hundred.
Thousands of people chanting "no justice, no peace, no racist police" and "black lives matter" had gathered in Hyde Park on Wednesday, the second major protest in Britain after hundreds gathered in London's Trafalgar Square on Sunday before marching to the US embassy.
'A life or death scenario'
The ambush on Avery came just hours after another of Nine's Europe correspondents, Sophie Walsh, was attacked by a man making motions to stab her during her live cross.
Walsh had been speaking to 9News Adelaide's Brenton Ragless when the man approached her and yelled the words "Allah Akbar".
Walsh screamed out as he grabbed her.
"Sorry, I just had someone come up and try and… A man just came up and grabbed me. It's okay, he's not armed," she told Ragless.
The man was then chased and detained by Nine's camera operator, Jason Conduit, and other bystanders at the scene until police arrived.
It is unclear whether the man was armed with a screwdriver, however he has since been arrested for threats to kill and possession an offensive weapon.
Walsh was shaken by the incident, but is unharmed.
Speaking on Today on Thursday morning after the attack Walsh said she was feeling "definitely pretty rattled still".
"Even just hearing my scream. I don't think anyone knows the sound of their true scream until they're in a situation like that where they feel like it's a life or death scenario," Walsh said.
"I did feel like that in a moment.
"The first I knew something was wrong, was Jase stepped out from behind his camera. He wouldn't do that unless there was a threat. This random guy grabbed me from behind. It was surreal. He started punching me, the only way I can describe it is sort of stabby motions.
"I managed to push him away. Then he was standing about five metres away from me.
"While I was on air, that's why I was struggling to string a sentence together. He had a hand in his pocket. I thought, 'does he have a knife and will he start stabbing us all?'
"We've had these stabbing rampages in London before.
"It was the third anniversary of the terror attacks on London Bridge. I thought, 'is he wearing a suicide vest?'"
PM 'concerned' for Australian media
Prime Minister Scott Morrison says he is "concerned" for the safety of Australian media reporting on the George Floyd protests in the US and now in the UK.
"I'm concerned for all Australians that would find themselves in danger at this time, in these places," Mr Morrison said.
"These are terrifying and horrible scenes, they are very distressing scenes, thank goodness we live in Australia."
Earlier this week Channel Seven reporter Amelia Brace and her cameraman Tim Myers were assaulted by riot police during a live cross from outside the White House in Washington, D.C.
The prime minister asked the Australian Embassy in Washington to investigate the circumstances around the assault when he was notified.
"The appropriate channel for that to be raised was through our ambassador and with the local authorities there in Washington," Mr Morrison said today.
"So that's what should have happened, that's what did happen.
"I was concerned for the journalists in that circumstance."
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