Soul singer Beverley Knight today described the horror she felt as she watched riots unfold in her home city of Wolverhampton.

The star, who was born in the city and whose family still live in Wolverhampton, said she felt ashamed as looters ran amok through the streets.

Beverley, who was awarded the MBE in 2006 for her services to music and charity, said: “I was just dismayed. It was opportunist stuff. I was devastated, completely broken-hearted.”

However, she said her abiding memory of the public disorder would be of people like Louise Smith, the proprietor of Louise’s Hair Salon in Queen Street, who managed to fend off up to 300 looters to protect her business.

And she also spoke of her pride at the people who took to the streets to clean up the mess left behind, and danced the Macarena to raise spirits.

Beverley, who was brought up in Penn Fields, had watched TV footage of riots in Hackney and Tottenham and feared the worst when reports filtered through of trouble in Wolverhampton.

Rioters rampaged down Dudley Street as trouble flared from around 4.30pm last Tuesday, smashing shop windows, before the mob made its way to Queen Street, which witnessed the worst of the violence.

Beverley, a former pupils of Woodfield and Highfields schools, said: “I was really dismayed when the trouble reached Wolverhampton.

“When I heard reports that things were getting tense, I got in touch with my family straight away. I wanted them out of the city, I didn’t want them caught up in it, I just wanted to know they were safe.”

The 38-year-old added: “You know, I was so ashamed because it’s still my home town. It’s a place that I know intimately so to see it getting trashed was devastating. Wolverhampton’s not a bad town. People who live there work so hard and their businesses were just ruined.”

Beverley, who released her seventh studio album Soul UK last month, will perform at Wolverhampton’s Civic Hall on November 22.