One of two brothers who brawled with officers at Manchester Airport before claiming he was the victim of police brutality has been found guilty of assaulting two female cops and a male passenger.
Mohammed Fahir Amaaz, 20, was today convicted of attacking PC Lydia Ward and PC Ellie Cook in the car park pay station of Terminal 2 on July 23 last year.
Amaaz was also found guilty of headbutting holidaymaker Abdulkareem Ismaeil who he had accused of racially abusing his mother on an incoming flight.
However jurors at Liverpool Crown Court could not reach majority verdicts on either Amaaz or his elder brother Muhammed Amaad, 26, for assault causing actual bodily harm on PC Zachary Marsden.
Scenes of PC Marsden kicking Amaaz in the head sparked outrage, with protesters taking to the streets holding ‘Black Lives Matter‘ placards and calling for the police to be ‘defunded’.
But there was a fierce backlash when leaked CCTV showed the violent unprovoked assault to which PC Marsden and two female colleagues had been subjected just seconds earlier.
To widespread public fury, it took 150 days for prosecutors to announce that PC Marsden would not be charged with any offences.
Instead the brothers – student Amaaz and former KFC assistant manager Amaad, both from Rochdale – were charged with assaulting the three officers.
Mohammed Fahir Amaaz (pictured), 20, was today convicted of attacking PC Lydia Ward and PC Ellie Cook in the car park pay station of Terminal 2 on July 23 last year
Mohammed Fahir Amaaz (L) and Muhammad Amaad (R) are pictured arriving at court . Amaaz was found guilty of assaulting two female police officers and a male passenger
A short clip of the moment firearms officer Zachary Marsden kicked Mohammed Fahir Amaaz, 20, in the head in Terminal Two at Manchester Airport in July last year went viral and sparked global outrage
But footage that surfaced later showed the full picture. Pictured is the moment Mohammed Fahir Amaaz, 20, swings a punch at PC Lydia Ward
The 11-strong jury unanimously found Amaaz guilty of assault by harm against PC Ward and common assault against Mr Ismaeil.
They convicted him of assault by beating against PC Cook by a majority of ten to one.
However they could not reach verdicts on which at least ten were agreed on either brother in relation to PC Marsden.
Amaaz showed no emotion as the verdicts were delivered.
The Crown Prosecution Service will now seek a retrial of both brothers in relation to the allegations that Amaaz and Amaad assaulted Pc Marsden causing actual bodily harm, Paul Greaney KC told the court.
As jurors delivered their verdicts after deliberating for ten hours, the public gallery was packed with supporters of the brothers, who stood side by side in the glass-walled dock.
Four uniformed police officers were stationed inside the courtroom but there was no reaction from their supporters.
Discharging jurors in relation to the counts where they failed to reach verdicts, Judge Neil Flewitt KC praised their ‘patience and understanding’.
He said he would be excusing them from jury service for ten years.
Pictured: The head injuries Mohammed Fahir Amaaz received. Amaaz claimed he had believed he was ‘fighting for my life’ during the violence
Pictured: An injury said to have been sustained by Mohammed Fahir Amaaz
A picture showing an injury received by Shameem Akhtar, the mother of the brothers
TikTok lawyer Akhmed Yakoob (centre with brothers) poured fuel on the fire when he described it as an ‘assassination attempt’
Mohammed Fahir Amaaz (left) and Muhammed Amaad (right)
The verdicts came after prosecutors urged jurors to ‘trust their eyes and ears’ over the multiple angles of footage and police officers’ testimony they had seen and heard.
All three officers acted in a ‘professional’ manner throughout, they argued, saying claims by the brothers’ defence that the police trio had been ‘out of control’ was ‘false’.
Neither brother has been in trouble with the police before, and six members of the family – including older brother Abid – are current or former officers with Greater Manchester Police.
Amaad himself twice applied unsuccessfully to join the force – including a 999 dispatch role just three months before the airport incident.
Younger brother Amaaz meanwhile has since begun studying sport marketing and management at Manchester Metropolitan University.
The violence erupted at 8.28pm on July 23 last year as officers responded to reports of Amaaz headbutting Mr Ismaeil at a Starbucks café in the Terminal 2 arrivals area minutes earlier.
PC Marsden and his female colleagues caught up with Amaaz – then 19 – as he and his brother were paying for parking, accompanied by their mother and six-year-old nephew.
Giving evidence, PC Marsden told jurors that based on the violence of the headbutt they decided to get ‘immediate control’ of the teenager and take him in for questioning.
Jurors at Liverpool Crown Court were shown CCTV footage of Amaaz (red dot) lashing out at Abdulkareem Ismaeil in front of a number of children at Starbucks
Amaaz can be seen first headbutting Mr Ismaeil before punching him with his left fist as other family members gathered around
Amaaz (pictured in light blue hooded top) and Amaad (right) started punching police officers
CCTV shows the moment Mohammed Fahir Amaaz grapples with policewomen Lydia Ward (front) and Ellie Cook (behind) after his attempted arrest at Manchester Airport
At one point he could be seen kicking out at an officer while his brother grappled
Constable Lydia Ward, who jurors heard is heavily pregnant, told of being ‘terrified’ after coming under attack – as footage of her injuries were was shown to a court
Officers were left cowering and attempting to protect themselves as the savage attack unfolded
Amaaz forces PC Marsden towards a seating area where he punches him in the head
Amaaz (in blue) was seen to throw 10 punches at the officers during the violence, while his brother – Muhammad Amaad (far left), 26, who is also on trial – threw six
Amaad and Amaaz (in blue) can be seen on the ground following the incident
Amaad can be seen being detained on the ground after the altercation
Instead, shocking footage shown to the jury from multiple angles including police bodycams showed how Amaaz resisted arrest before his brother then overpowered PC Marsden and began raining punches down.
In court, PC Marsden said he had feared heavily-built Amaad was trying to grab his loaded Glock 17 semi-automatic pistol from its holster.
Amaaz – who threw ten punches in the melee – hit and elbowed PCs Cook and Ward before tackling PC Marsden, who had managed to fire his 50,000 volt Taser at Amaad.
In the flurry of violence PC Cook then managed to Taser Amaaz, who fell to the floor and was kicked by PC Marsden, whose glasses had been knocked off in the melee.
Asked about the kick, PC Marsden said he was attempting to ‘stun’ Amaaz, not immediately realising in the confusion that he had been Tasered.
PC Marsden said he used the ‘soft, laced’ part of his boot – adding that he ‘strongly disputed’ that there was any element of anger or ‘retaliation’.
He also aimed a stamp next to Amaaz’s head – telling the court he had been trying to ‘clamp’ the wire of his police radio, which was hanging loose.
Throughout the altercation, bystanders simply filmed it on their mobile phones, PC Marsden said, describing the watching crowd as ‘hostile’.
Pictured is a general view of the pay station of the Terminal 2 car park where the chaos unfolded
Muhammad Amaad, 26, (left) and his brother Mohammed Fahir Amaaz, 20, (right) arriving for their trial at Liverpool Crown Court on July 15 either side of their new solicitor, Aamer Anwar
(L-R) Muhammed Amaad (left), solictor Aamer Anwar (second right), mother Shameem Akhtar and Mohammed Fahir Amaaz at a press conference at the Midland Hotel in Manchester on August 6 where they made allegations of mistreatment by police
Back-up officers then arrived at the scene shouting ‘You f****** move, I’ll smash your f****** face in’ and handcuffed both brothers before they were hauled off for questioning.
Neither made any comment when they were interviewed the following day.
PC Cook was left with ‘blurry’ vision and needed hospital treatment to swelling to her head and pain to her jaw.
In court, the brothers denied all the charges on the grounds that they were acting in self-defence or the defence of one another.
Their defence teams highlighted how the officers did not announce themselves or say why they were attempting to arrest Amaaz.
Asked in court why he resisted arrested, Amaaz said he hadn’t initially realised PC Marsden was a policeman – despite his uniform and cap marked ‘police’ – and was ‘scared and frightened’.
‘I believe if he’d brought me down to the ground he’d have battered me to the point where I was dead and he’d have killed me,’ he said.
Amaaz said he attacked PC Marsden after seeing him pointing his bright yellow Taser at his brother, believing it was a gun and that he was going to shoot him.
Meanwhile elder brother Amaad told jurors he had leapt to Amaaz’s defence believing PC Marsden was trying to ‘choke’ him.
Amaad’s counsel was Imran Khan KC, who represented Stephen Lawrence’s family throughout their battle for justice over his racist murder in 1993.
He told jurors that ‘from the get-go’ PC Marsden had shown ‘no regard for his training, policy or procedure’.
Accusing him of being ‘out of control’, he said: ‘He did whatever he wanted.’
In her closing speech, Chloe Gardner, representing Amaad, branded PC Marsden ‘an uncontrolled bully with a badge’ and accused him of having ‘defied protocol, ethics, procedure and the law’.
Claiming ‘red mist’ had descended, she said the kick to Amaaz could have killed him while Amaad could have been ‘suffocated’.
But prosecutor Paul Greaney KC earlier ridiculed Amaaz’s claim that he did not know PCs Ward and Cook were women, saying it ‘cannot exist in the real world we inhabit’.
While Amaaz now faces a possible prison sentence, while both brothers may face a retrial, PC Marsden could also face criminal charges.
The Crown Prosecution Service decided last December that he would not charged with any criminal offence.
But he remains under investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct which has been monitoring the trial.
It could still refer him back to the Crown Prosecution Service to consider pressing charges, jurors were told.
A second male Greater Manchester Police officer who along with PC Marsden confronted bystanders filming the brawl also remains under investigation.
Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police, Sir Stephen Watson said: ‘While disappointed that the prosecution case was not fully endorsed, I welcome the findings of the jury in respect of the convicted offender, whose appalling conduct has now been exposed to legitimate public scrutiny.
‘I am grateful to the prosecution team, and to those investigating officers from GMP who have worked hard to assist the court in enabling justice to be done in respect of those counts where a verdict was reached.
‘GMP is actively supportive of a retrial in respect of the two counts where a verdict was not achieved. We remain fully committed to providing the prosecution team with every assistance needed to reach an outcome on these matters.
‘Our officers first approached the man now convicted in order to make an arrest following the unprovoked assault on an innocent man in the presence of his wife and children. They were responding quickly to precisely the sort of outrageous criminal behaviour that rightly offends the public.
‘Whilst assaults on police officers are sadly not uncommon – 44 of my officers are assaulted every week across GM – such attacks can never be justified. Our officers are decent people who routinely place themselves in harm’s way to protect the public. They deserve our respect and support.
‘I am particularly grateful to those many members of the public who have contacted the force in order to pass on their best wishes to the officers affected.’
