A man who violently assaulted two female police officers during an arrest at Manchester Airport has been sentenced to three and a half years in prison.
Mohammed Fahir Amaaz, 21, of Rochdale, was jailed after being convicted of assaulting Lydia Ward, Ellie Cook and a member of the public during a confrontation outside Terminal 2 in July 2024.
The incident began after Amaaz was accused of headbutting a man inside a Starbucks café at the airport. When officers attempted to detain him, the situation escalated into a violent struggle that was captured on CCTV and mobile phone footage.
A jury at Liverpool Crown Court found Amaaz guilty last year of the assaults. However, sentencing was postponed while prosecutors sought a retrial over an allegation that he had also assaulted Zachary Marsden. Jurors were again unable to reach a verdict on that charge, which was subsequently left unresolved, resulting in Amaaz being acquitted of that allegation.
Passing sentence, Neil Flewitt KC described Amaaz as the “aggressor” throughout the confrontation, telling him the attacks on the two officers were both prolonged and entirely unprovoked.
The court heard that Sergeant Ward, who suffered a broken nose during the assault, later delivered a powerful victim impact statement.
Addressing Amaaz directly, she said: “What you did was cowardly.”
She continued by asking him to look beyond her role as a police officer.
“Look at me standing here. What do you see? I’ll tell you what you see. You see a female. A female who is 5ft 2in and, at the time of the incident, weighed no more than eight stone.
“You are a male and you chose to attack me without a second thought. You chose to attack a female. You knocked me to the ground with one punch, with so much force you broke my nose.”
The confrontation attracted widespread public attention after footage circulated online. An early clip, showing PC Marsden appearing to kick Amaaz while he was on the ground, prompted protests and calls for scrutiny of police conduct.
The court heard that the officer remains under investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct, although the watchdog has declined to comment publicly while its enquiries continue.
Subsequent CCTV footage released to the media showed the moments leading up to the arrest, including Amaaz striking both PC Ward and PC Cook, knocking the officers to the ground before he was restrained.
The case has remained one of the most closely watched police assault prosecutions in recent years, highlighting both the dangers officers face while carrying out arrests and the intense public scrutiny that can follow when only partial footage of an incident is initially made public.
