A man has been sentenced to three and a half years in prison after being convicted of assaulting two female police officers and a member of the public at a Starbucks inside Manchester Airport.
Mohammed Fahir Amaaz, 21, from Rochdale, was found guilty following a four-week trial at Liverpool Crown Court last year of common assault and two counts of actual bodily harm. The attacks took place on 23 July 2024, beginning inside a Starbucks in Terminal 2 and continuing in the airport car park. Mobile phone footage of the brawl – which showed a young Asian man being kicked in the face on the ground by a male police officer, who then appeared to stamp towards his head – was widely shared on social media and sparked accusations of racism and police brutality. Days later, a leaked CCTV clip showed the altercation beforehand with three police officers, who sustained injuries including concussion, a broken nose, bruising and swelling.
Footage played to the jury revealed the full extent of Amaaz’s violence. He head-butted a member of the public, Abdulkareem Ismaeil, and threw ten punches, two elbow strikes and one kick at the responding officers. The officers were PC Lydia Ward and PC Ellie Cook, who had been dispatched alongside armed officer PC Zachary Marsden to arrest Amaaz in the airport’s car park pay station. The initial confrontation inside the Starbucks followed a report by Amaaz’s mother that she had been racially abused and pushed by Ismaeil on a flight from Doha. Amaaz claimed Ismaeil had threatened to kill him, but coffee shop workers said they did not hear such a threat and that Amaaz was the aggressor. Ismaeil was interviewed on suspicion of racially aggravated assault but no charges were brought against him.
Amaaz and his brother, Muhammad Amaad, 26, also from Rochdale, argued they had acted in lawful self-defence, or defence of each other, against PC Marsden. However, two separate juries could not reach a verdict on the charges relating to PC Marsden, and the Crown Prosecution Service last month said it would not seek a third trial against the brothers. As a result, Muhammad Amaad was cleared of all charges, and Mohammed Fahir Amaaz was sentenced only for the assaults on PC Ward, PC Cook and the civilian.
Victim Impact Statements
In her victim impact statement read to the court, PC Lydia Ward described how Amaaz had “knocked me to the ground with one punch, with so much force you broke my nose”. She called his actions “cowardly” and said she was “totally blindsided” by the attack. “I never in a million years thought you would have attacked me the way you did,” she told the court. “I’m still so confused about it all. It replays in my mind constantly.” Ward, who is of slight build and was unarmed, suffered a broken nose and a permanent scar from the injury. She also revealed that the ongoing legal proceedings had overshadowed her maternity leave after giving birth last year. “In much of my maternity leave, I have had the worry of having to go back to court hanging over me,” she said. “I have been unable to enjoy the experience as I should have. I’ll never get this time back.”
PC Ellie Cook told the court she was left “traumatised” and “terrified” by the assault, during which she suffered “excruciating” pain. Amaaz’s punches, she said, had “such power behind them that I thought I was being attacked by three to four people”. Cook had recently started a new role as a firearms officer at the airport and had taken the job as a stepping stone to a position as a close protection officer in the Metropolitan Police. “I woke up that morning happy. I never could have imagined what was about to happen to me,” she said. “I don’t think you will ever begin to understand what you have done to me, or my family. I used to be happy. I used to be driven. I used to be focused. I am now broken.” The attack left her with jaw pain that required her to eat mashed food, and she was signed off work with duty-related trauma. She said she had to move out of a home where she felt safe and secure because “everyone was talking about it, and I couldn’t escape”. Cook added: “It pains me to say this, but because of what you have done to me, I have decided to give up being a firearms officer. This means my dream of becoming a close protection officer is on hold, and I may have to come to terms with the fact that it may not happen.”
Judge Neil Flewitt KC, who sentenced Amaaz at Liverpool Crown Court on 26 June, criticised the defendant’s “total lack of remorse” and his portrayal of himself as a victim. The judge noted that Amaaz had the opportunity to acknowledge his responsibility after seeing the CCTV footage but instead chose to blame others, which did not bode well for rehabilitation. Malcolm McHaffie, head of the CPS’s Special Crime Division, said the incident was violent and occurred in front of families, leaving an officer needing medical assistance, and that CCTV and witness testimonies clearly showed Amaaz acted unlawfully.
Greater Manchester Police Chief Constable Sir Stephen Watson QPM highlighted that officers responded to a report of a man being assaulted and were met with violence, then faced online vilification despite having the full facts. He noted that assaults on police officers are “sadly all too common”. The Independent Office for Police Conduct has an ongoing investigation into the conduct of PC Marsden and other officers, and also investigated an officer for allegedly leaking CCTV footage of the incident. The CPS had previously decided not to charge any police officers, citing insufficient evidence. Amaaz had been remanded in custody for approximately ten to eleven months before his sentencing. The brothers faced an estimated £2 million in legal costs. It also emerged that the Amaaz brothers have an elder brother who served with Greater Manchester Police, along with five cousins in the force. In a separate development, comments made by Reform UK leader Nigel Farage about the case were referred to the Attorney General by the judge for potentially being in contempt of court.
PC Ward, who has since been promoted to police sergeant, said she felt anger that Amaaz “played the victim” after only part of the footage was made public. “What angers me is that afterwards, when only part of the footage was out in the public, you played the victim,” she told the court. PC Cook echoed that sentiment, saying: “It hurts and upsets me that you chose to spin the narrative the way you did.”
