CCTV footage showing the incident at Manchester airport in July 2024. Photograph: Crown Prosecution Service/PACCTV footage showing the incident at Manchester airport in July 2024. Photograph: Crown Prosecution Service/PABrothers accused of assaulting officer at Manchester airport will not face third trialMohammed Fahir Amaaz and Muhammad Amaad denied assaulting PC Zachary Marsden in 2024 incident
Two brothers who were accused of assaulting a police officer at Manchester airport in 2024 will not face a third trial after prosecutors failed to provide evidence.
Mohammed Fahir Amaaz, 21, and Muhammad Amaad, 26, were filmed having a physical confrontation with PC Zachary Marsden in July 2024.
The video appeared to show one of the brothers on the floor, being kicked in the face by Marsden while on the ground, as onlookers shouted for him to stop. The video led to online criticism of Marsden and allegations of racial discrimination and police brutality.
Two separate juries at Liverpool crown court were unable to reach verdicts on whether the brothers had assaulted Marsden, causing actual bodily harm. The second failed to come to a decision after deliberating for nearly 20 hours following a five-week trial, leading Judge Flewitt to instruct that verdicts of not guilty be recorded against the pair.
Amaaz appeared via video link from prison. He was remanded in custody last year after being convicted at the first trial of three counts of assault over the incident at the airport, including assaults on two other officers. Amaad, who was found not guilty at the same trial, sat in court.
Representing the prosecution, Paul Greaney KC said a third trial would have been pursued only in “exceptional circumstances” and that though the Crown believed “the count on the indictment is serious and the case has attracted significant public interest, it cannot properly be described as one of extreme gravity”.
Muhammad Amaad, centre, outside Liverpool crown court. Photograph: Peter Byrne/PAIt has since emerged that before the retrial, Judge Flewitt had referred comments made by Nigel Farage to the attorney general, Richard Hermer, as “potentially a contempt of court” after the Reform UK leader criticised the initial verdict.
The comments were made by Farage during a 21 June press conference in which he said that there was a “reluctance to prosecute those violent thugs in Manchester airport”. Flewitt wrote: “I took the view that the observation made by Nigel Farage was potentially a contempt of court as it implied the guilt of the defendants.”
In his written judgment, Flewitt said Farage’s intervention, “however unwelcome, would not adversely affect the fairness of the trial”. The Attorney General’s Office confirmed that no contempt of court proceedings were issued.
In the initial trial, the court heard that the altercation began when one of the brothers headbutted and punched a man who they said had verbally abused their mother, Shameem Akhtar, 56, who was with the pair.
After Marsden arrived alongside PC Lydia Ward and PC Ellie Cook, the court heard that Amaaz became aggressive and refused to comply with the officers’ instructions before assaulting them. All three officers were allegedly punched multiple times and Ward suffered a broken nose. The assault ended with Amaad being restrained and Amaaz being tasered and kicked by Marsden. One of the civilians who filmed the incident was also pepper-sprayed.
The brothers, from Rochdale in Greater Manchester, maintained that they acted in lawful self-defence, or in defence of the other. Amaaz told the jury that he feared for his life during the incident. He said he had tried to “de-escalate the situation” and that he had not realised that Cook and Ward were women as “it was happening so fast I couldn’t process the little details”.
Marsden, who was suspended after the incident, maintained he had used reasonable force and that he had not intended to stamp on or kick Amaaz, but was instead trying to stop him grabbing the wire of his police radio and using it against him. The Crown Prosecution Service said in December that year that no police officer would face charges over the incident, leading to Greater Manchester police lifting Marsden’s suspension.
An investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct continues.
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