Rochdale man sentenced for assault on police officers and customer at Manchester airport

Mobile phone footage showed Amaaz in an altercation at an airport Starbucks with three police officers. Photograph: Ryan Jenkinson/Getty Images View image in fullscreen Mobile phone footage showed Amaaz in an altercation at an airport Starbucks with three police officers. Photograph: Ryan Jenkinson/Getty Images Rochdale man sentenced for assault on police officers and customer at Manchester airport Mohammed Fahir Amaaz, 21, found guilty of common assault and actual bodily harm last year after incident in 2024 A man has been sentenced to three and a half years in jail after being convicted of assaulting two female police officers and a member of the public at a Starbucks in Manchester airport. Mohammed Fahir Amaaz, 21, from Rochdale, was convicted of common assault and two counts of actual bodily harm, following a four-week trial at Liverpool crown court last year. Mobile phone footage of the brawl, which took place in July 2024, was shared widely on social media in the wake of the incident. It showed a young Asian man kicked in the face on the floor by a male police officer, who then appeared to stamp towards his head. Days later, a CCTV clip, leaked to the media, showed an altercation beforehand with three police officers, who sustained injuries including concussion, a broken nose and bruising and swelling. Footage played to the jury showed Amaaz head-butting a member of the public, and throwing 10 punches, two elbow strikes and one kick at the responding police officers, who included PC Lydia Ward and PC Ellie Cook. He and his fellow defendant, his brother, Muhammad Amaad, 26, from Rochdale, had claimed they acted in lawful self-defence, or defence of each other, against the male police officer, PC Zachary Marsden. Two juries could not make a decision 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. In her victim impact statement, Ward said Amaaz had “knocked me to the ground with one punch, with so much force you broke my nose,” describing what he did as “cowardly”. “What angers me is that afterwards, when only part of the footage was out in the public, you played the victim,” she said. When she and her colleague were attacked, Ward said, “we were totally blindsided, and I felt like it came from nowhere.” “I never in a million years thought you would have attacked me the way you did,” she said. “I’m still so confused about it all. It replays in my mind constantly.” She told the court she had given birth last year, and said that in “much of my maternity leave, I have had the worry of having to go back to court hanging over me”. “I have been unable to enjoy the experience as I should have,” she added. “I’ll never get this time back.” Cook said she was left “traumatised” by the attack, during which she was “terrified” and suffered “excruciating” pain. Amaaz’s punches, she said, had “such power behind them that I thought I was being attacked by three to f