
Moment man ‘headbutted passenger at Manchester airport before he & brother attacked cops with high level of violence'
Mohammed Fahir Amaaz, 20, and Muhammad Amaad, 26, allegedly lashed out at three officers - leaving one with a broken nose.
6
6
Jurors heard cops had been scrambled to deal with the pair following an earlier altercation at a Starbucks in the airport.
Footage played to the court showed Amaaz headbutting a passenger and punching him on July 23.
Liverpool Crown Court heard the man, Abdulkareem Ismaeil, had some sort of incident with Amaaz and Amaad's mum while they either on the same flight or shortly after it.
Paul Greaney KC said: "The defendants met their mother in the arrivals area of Terminal 2 and began to walk to the car park with her and the child that was with them. As they did so, they passed a Starbucks coffee house.
"Abdulkareem Ismaeil was in there with his wife and children. The defendants' mother spotted Abdulkareem Ismaeil and pointed him out to her sons.
"At just after 8.20pm, the defendants entered Starbucks and confronted Abdulkareem Ismaeil. During that confrontation, Mohammed Fahir Amaaz delivered a headbutt to the face of Abdulkareem Ismaeil and punched him, then attempted to deliver other blows, all in front of a number of children.
"The prosecution case is that this was obviously unlawful conduct."
The court heard PC Zachary Marsden and PC Ellie Cook - both armed - and PC Lydia Ward, who was unarmed, were in the airport at the time.
They approached the brothers in the Terminal 2 car park and attempted to move Amaaz away from a pay machine to arrest him.
But Amaaz "resisted" - causing his sibling to then intervene before the pair assaulted PC Marsden, it was said.
Mr Greaney said: "In the moments that followed, the first defendant also assaulted PC Cook and then PC Ward too, breaking her nose.
"The defendants used a high level of violence."
Jurors were played CCTV footage that showed Amaaz holding PC Marsden "round the neck" before he dragged the officer to the ground with him.
He then "raised and moved his head" towards PC Marsden, who responded by kicking him in the face.
The footage showed what appeared to be a stamp aimed by the cop at Amaaz as he lay on the ground.
6
6
Mr Greaney said: "We recognise those actions look rather shocking in the cold light of day but we suggest they need to be judged in the context of the very serious level of threat posed by the defendants to an officer who was concerned that his firearm might be taken from him at an airport.
"In any event, those actions all occurred after the violence of the defendants.
"The position of the prosecution is that they are logically irrelevant to the lawfulness of the conduct of Mohammed Fahir Amaaz and Muhammad Amaad as charged in the indictment.
"What you have seen is the two defendants acting offensively, not defensively. The position of the prosecution is that their apparent defence of self-defence is false."
Jurors heard PC Marsden suffered "post-concussion syndrome" and was left with a "severe headache" for three days, dizziness, forgetfulness and bruising and swelling.
PC Ward was captured in bodycam footage sobbing with her mouth filled with blood moments after the horror.
She was left with a broken nose and needed surgery under general anaesthetic, it was said.
Mr Greaney said "given the number of punches thrown by the first defendant at PC Cook's head and face, she was fortunate only to receive relatively minor injuries to her forehead and jaw.'
He told jurors the prosecution's position was this was "not a complicated case".
He also said the violence was entirely unlawful and delivered out of "anger" and not in self-defence.
The prosecutor added: "The events you are concerned with were captured by CCTV cameras and, in relation to the events in the payment area on the body-worn cameras of police officers as well.
"So you will not have to depend only on the recollections of witnesses. You will also be able to see with your own eyes what happened.
"The two defendants assert, as we understand it, that at all stages they were acting in lawful self-defence or in defence of the other.
"Our prediction is that you will readily conclude that the defendants were not acting in lawful self-defence and that their conduct was unlawful."
Amaaz denies assaulting PC Marsden and PC Ward, causing them actual bodily harm.
He is also accused of the assault of PC Cook and the earlier assault of Abdulkareem Ismaeil at Starbucks.
Amaad has pleaded not guilty to assaulting PC Marsden, causing actual bodily harm.
The trial continues.
6
6
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


The Guardian
34 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Home Office announces ‘nationwide blitz' on asylum seekers taking jobs
The Home Office has announced what it is calling a 'nationwide blitz' on asylum seekers who take jobs, after recent political controversy about people in asylum hotels working as food takeaway delivery riders. In a statement, which gave few specifics, the Home Office pledged to begin 'a major operation to disrupt this type of criminality' based around enforcement teams focusing on the gig economy, particularly on delivery riders. 'Strategic, intel-driven activity will bring together officers across the UK and place an increased focus on migrants suspected of working illegally whilst in taxpayer funded accommodation or receiving financial support,' the statement said. It follows media stories about evidence that people who are living in hotels waiting for their asylum claims to be processed, and who are banned from working, have been using the log-ins of people with official migration status to work for companies such as Deliveroo, Just Eat and Uber Eats. Ten days ago the shadow home secretary, Chris Philp, posted a much-shared social media video of him visiting an asylum hotel in London and finding bikes laden with bags from the various food delivery companies packed together in an outside courtyard. On Monday, Uber Eats, Deliveroo and Just Eat promised to increase the use of facial verification checks for riders after a hastily arranged meeting with Home Office ministers. The Home Office statement said anyone caught working could lose their accommodation or support payments, and that businesses found to be employing someone not entitled to work could face fines of up to £60,000 per worker, as well as director disqualifications or prison terms. It said there had already been an increase in enforcement and arrests connected to illegal working in the year since Labour took power. Asylum and immigration is seen by ministers as an area of political vulnerability, one being exploited by Reform UK and the Conservatives. While a huge backlog of unprocessed asylum claims is being gradually reduced, the number of asylum seekers arriving on small boats across the Channel has risen. Keir Starmer is to discuss the issue with Emmanuel Macron when the French president visits the UK next week, with the possibility of a 'one in, one out' deal in which the UK could return those on small boats to France in exchange for accepting asylum seekers with links to Britain via more formal means. Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, said the government was increasing action to combat the 'pull factor' of such work. However, she said: 'There is no single solution to the problem of illegal migration. That's why we've signed landmark agreements with international partners to dismantle gangs and made significant arrests of notorious people smugglers.' Philp said: 'It shouldn't take a visit to an asylum hotel by me as shadow home secretary to shame the government into action. Illegal working by asylum seekers – most of whom also entered the country illegally – is happening from the very hotels Yvette Cooper is using our money to run. 'The government could easily stop it. I saw Deliveroo and other bikes parked in the hotel's own compound - yet all the security guard cared about was me filming.'


Sky News
2 hours ago
- Sky News
How Britain's most notorious gangster turned up at a charity lunch to fact-check a retired detective's talk
Britain's most notorious gangster and the detective who pursued him have been involved in a bizarre confrontation…at a charity lunch. Former Detective Superintendent Ian Brown was at a Kent golf club and about to give a talk on the infamous £26m Brink's-Mat gold robbery when he was summoned from the stage by officials. Mr Brown, who appeared on the award-winning Sky News StoryCast podcast The Hunt For The Brink's-Mat Gold in 2019, said: "I go outside and they say 'he's here' and I say 'who's here' and they say that table over there in the corner, that's Kenny Noye with a baseball cap pulled down over his head." Noye stabbed to death an undercover policeman during the Brink's-Mat investigation, but was acquitted of murder, though he was jailed for handling the stolen gold. After his release, he used a knife again in the M25 road-rage murder of motorist Stephen Cameron. "They said what are we going to do?" said Mr Brown. "I said are you serving food? Well, just use plastic knives." Although Mr Brown had not personally arrested Noye over Brink's-Mat he had identified him as a suspect months after the robbery. Years later he met him during an ill-fated TV interview in which he quizzed him about his role in the robbery. He said: "He told me everything I wanted to know except the truth. He still insists he had nothing to do with it." The interview was never broadcast after the prison authorities threatened to send Noye back to jail for a breach of his parole. Mr Brown, 86, said: "I went over to him and said 'thanks for coming, nice of you to pop in', but I don't believe you've turned up with your sons and grandkids to listen to me telling how you killed a police officer. "And he said 'I want to make sure you don't say I've been dealing drugs' and I said 'I've never said that Kenny'." The retired detective told Noye he wasn't going to change his presentation just because he was there. "He said 'mate, I wouldn't expect you to and I'll come up [on stage] if you want me to'. "Can you think how he's turned up with his family to listen to somebody talking about you killing the police? Now, you put logic on that." The bizarre story emerged when I rang Mr Brown after I'd been told about the meeting. I also wanted to ask him about the recent BBC hit drama series The Gold which retold the story of the Brink's-Mat heist at Heathrow Airport in 1983. "It was an absolute shambles, far too much dramatic licence and the real story was so much better," said the ex-detective, whose job had been to follow the trail of the 6,800 gold bars to the US and the Caribbean. He said he chatted to one of the show's writers for a long time in a phone call but then heard no more. "They invented people, changed a bit here and there and made it politically correct in so many ways. I'm just very sad that that is what people will believe. "And I couldn't work out who my character was supposed to be. I could have been one of the female cops." He also criticised the portrayal of Noye, now 78, as a likeable jack-the-lad character when the truth about the double killer with a volatile temper was quite different.


Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Twist after 'completely evil' killer who served 19 years behind bars after strangling his ex-girlfriend in a jealous rage is charged with assaulting a SECOND woman in a hotel room
A killer who spent nearly two decades in jail for the brutal murder of his ex-girlfriend has been charged with assaulting a second woman in a hotel room. William Harold Matheson, 42, was arrested on Friday morning at a home in Randwick, in Sydney 's east, after allegedly assaulting a 38-year-old woman in a Leichardt hotel room on May 17. The convicted killer will remain in custody after being charged with sexual assault without consent and sexually touching another person without consent. He had been on parole for just over two years when the alleged assault occurred, after serving 19 years in jail for the murder of 18-year-old Lyndsay van Blanken. He was released from jail May 2023 with six years remaining on his sentence after the State Parole Authority accepted he was at a 'low risk' of reoffending. Lyndsay's family opposed Matheson's release, with her mother Cynthia van Blanken warning the 'monster' still remained a danger to the public. 'If they let him out next week, they will be responsible for what happens and it won't be good,' she told A Current Affair at the time. In November 2003, Matheson strangled Lyndsay, his ex-girlfriend, to death with zip ties before he stuffed her body into a cricket bag. Her body was discovered six weeks later in the garage of a Coogee apartment after residents reported a foul odour emanating from within the complex. Matheson had grown obsessed with Lyndsay after she broke off their relationship and got engaged to an American hairdresser. He followed her home from work before committing the brutal murder in what police characterised as a jealous rage on November 24, 2003. A skilled cellist, he performed at the Sydney Entertainment Centre later that night, where he was seen acting 'quite normally' despite visible scratches on his skin. In 2006, he was sentenced to 27 years in prison with a non-parole period of 18 years. The Court of Criminal Appeal cut his maximum sentence to 25 years after finding the primary judge had made a sentencing error. On appeal, Justice Clifton Hoeben said the killing was 'brutal and cruel' and that the 18-year non-parole period should be enforced, in a judgment backed by the panel. His first parole application was refused after his non-parole period expired in May 2022, with the Serious Offenders Review Council finding his release would not be appropriate. His second application was approved the following year despite a submission from the victim's family 'strongly opposing' his release. Ms van Blanken described Matheson as 'completely evil', telling Nine News prior to his release she planned to fight his parole 'to the last minute'. 'He's actually served the equivalent of my daughter's age, which isn't fair,' she told the program. Matheson's parole was granted subject to certain conditions, including that he would live with his parents in Randwick and be monitored 24 hours a day. He was also forbidden from contacting Lyndsay's family. In granting parole, Justice James Wood said delaying release any further could harm Matheson's chance of successful reintegration into the community. 'Release at the end of sentence or deferral of release without the opportunity of undertaking a sufficient period of support and supervision on parole… particularly in a case such as this… is likely to be counterproductive,' he said. He was refused bail at Parramatta Local Court on Saturday and will appear in Waverley for an AVO hearing on July 10.