A student has been found guilty of assaulting two female police officers at Manchester airport last summer during a violent disturbance that went viral on social media.
One of the officers, PC Lydia Ward, suffered a broken nose and fell to the ground after Mohammed Fahir Amaaz, 20, punched her.
During a four-week trial, Ward told Liverpool crown court she was “absolutely terrified” and had never experienced such violence towards her during her police service.
The other officer, PC Ellie Cook, was struck twice by Amaaz’s elbow and was also knocked to the ground, a jury heard.
Both officers and their colleague, PC Zachary Marsden, approached Amaaz at a car park ticket machine after a report that a man fitting his description had head-butted a customer at a Starbucks in Terminal 2 arrivals on 23 July last year.
Amaaz allegedly resisted and his brother, Muhammad Amaad, 26, is said to have intervened as the prosecution said they inflicted a “high level of violence” on the Greater Manchester police officers.
Both defendants, from Rochdale, Greater Manchester, told the court they acted in lawful self-defence or in defence of the other.
On Wednesday a jury at Liverpool crown court found Amaaz guilty of the assault of Ward causing actual bodily harm and the assault of Cook.
Amaaz was also convicted of the Starbucks assault of a member of the public, Abdulkareem Ismaeil.
After 10 hours of deliberating, jurors could not reach a verdict on allegations the two brothers assaulted Marsden causing actual bodily harm.
The prosecuting barrister Paul Greaney KC said the crown would retry both brothers on the charge that they assaulted Marsden.
Mobile phone footage of a kick and stamp by Marsden as Amaaz lay on the floor was shared on social media and went viral.
Giving evidence, Ward said the intention was to secure Amaaz and take him outside, away from the crowded area.
She said Amaaz started to “tense up and resist” when she and her police colleagues took hold of him. “Then things escalated very quickly. It just went from nought to a hundred.”
Ward, a former special constable with Lancashire police who joined GMP in 2018, said: “Never in my whole time in the police service had that level of violence been used on me before. It felt really hard.
“As I came round, all I could feel was blood pouring out of my nose. I was just thinking he has done something to my nose, face area, I didn’t know what has happened.”
Asked how she felt as she came round, Ward said: “I was terrified, to be honest. I was absolutely terrified. I had never experienced that level of violence towards me in my life.”
Greaney said Amaad had “no legitimate reason to seek to prevent the officers from carrying out their duty, particularly in the circumstances where it must have been obvious his brother was resisting arrest”.
Giving his evidence, Amaaz said he feared the “lunatic” male officer would “batter him to death” and Amaad said he believed he was under attack.
The defence said the officers used “unlawful force” as they grabbed Amaaz from behind without announcing themselves.
Sir Stephen Watson, GMP’s chief constable, said after Wednesday’s verdict: “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.
“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.”
Mike Peake, the chair of Greater Manchester’s Police Federation, said the conviction showed the “worst side of police work our officers are faced with”.
Amaaz was remanded in custody by the judge Neil Flewitt KC and a bail application hearing for Amaaz was scheduled for Thursday.
