Police are investigating after a BBC reporter said she was racially abused while filming a coronavirus report from Leicester city centre. Sima Kotecha, a BBC news reporter, was preparing to broadcast on Sunday evening following Boris Johnson’s address to the nation when a man began shouting at her, the crew and their guests. Shortly afterwards, Kotecha tweeted: “Apologies to our guests who we had to send home without putting on air after myself and team were subjected to racist and abusive behaviour – sad obstruction of reporting of a national crisis. Yes I’m furious. “Apologies – but man shouting terrible things at me has ruined it for everyone. I’m afraid not going to make it on the special programme.” Responding to Kotecha on Twitter, the chief constable of Leicestershire police, Simon Cole, said: “Sorry to hear about this. I’ve spoken to our control room. Has it been reported? If not then please call 101 or online.” The Guardian understands police then contacted Kotecha to ask her to give a statement about what had happened and to ask whether her crew had footage of the alleged abuser. Leicester police said in a statement: “We are aware of a post on social media relating to a woman being racially abused in Leicester city centre yesterday evening. “Racist abuse will not be tolerated under any circumstances and officers have made contact with the woman to offer support. An investigation into the incident is ongoing and no arrests have been made at this time.” The BBC said in a statement: “While preparing to broadcast, our reporter, her production team and guests were subjected to racist and abusive behaviour. We are appalled by what happened and will be reporting the incident to the police. We will not tolerate racism or abuse of our staff.” Kotecha is not the only broadcast journalist from a black or minority ethnic background to be subject to racism while reporting on the coronavirus crisis. Inzamam Rashid, a Sky News reporter, tweeted on Saturday: “I cannot tell you how many racist, vile, hateful messages I’ve received over the past few weeks whilst covering the #COVID19 crisis. On a daily basis, I’ve been sent some vile comments. But I have to say, so many people have thanked me & appreciated the coverage.” Rashid said he had spoken out after receiving regular abuse while reporting on the disproportionate number of Covid-19 deaths in the BAME community. “I am used to receiving racist abuse, unfortunately, but I’ve been getting it in such volumes recently that it has really shocked me,” he said. “The majority of threats and the abuse and the nastiness is directed at this one story about BME disproportionality.” Rashid said he had reported the abuse to Instagram and Twitter but did not hold out much hope that anything would change. “I do think social media companies could do more to stop this stuff,” he said. Support from his employers at Sky had been brilliant, he said. “They checked in with me and said, ‘we can escalate this’. But I don’t want to take it further. A lot of BME journalists across the board get this sort of abuse and they don’t tend to talk about it. But I think it’s important to acknowledge that this is happening.”