Police officer says she was ‘absolutely terrified' during Manchester Airport brawl
Pc Lydia Ward said she had 'never experienced' such violence towards her in her police service as she suffered a broken nose in the incident at the Terminal 2 car park pay station area on July 23 last year.
She and two colleagues from Greater Manchester Police had approached Mohammed Fahir Amaaz, 20, at a ticket machine after a report that a male fitting his description had headbutted a customer at the Starbucks cafe in T2 arrivals.
Amaaz allegedly resisted, and his brother, Muhammad Amaad, 26, is then said to have intervened as the prosecution says they inflicted a 'high level of violence' on the officers.
Giving evidence on Thursday at Liverpool Crown Court, Pc Ward said the intention was to secure the suspect and take him outside, away from the crowded area.
She said Amaaz started to 'tense up and resist' when she and Pc Zachary Marsden and Pc Ellie Cook took hold of him.
'Then things escalated very quickly. It just went from nought to a hundred,' she said.
'My attention was mainly on Mr Amaaz. However, I was aware the larger male, Mr Amaad, had come over, and there was some sort of fracas between him and Pc Marsden and Pc Cook, and they were trying to get him away so they could effect the arrest.
'I was trying to keep hold of Mr Amaaz's arm and get it behind his back so I could get some cuffs on him.'
She said she recalled that Pc Marsden fell or was pushed towards some seats and that Mr Amaaz then kicked out at her colleague.
Pc Ward said: 'The man in blue started booting him, kicking him really hard, and I was trying to pull him off.
'I tried to grab him off so he could stop kicking Pc Marsden. All I remember then is that he turned and he punched me straight in the face.
'I can't really remember where it landed, but I know where my injuries were. I remember falling on the floor and everything went black.'
She told prosecutor Adam Birkby that the blow delivered was 'really forceful'.
Pc 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 had happened.'
Mr Birkby said: 'How did you feel when you came round?'
Pc Ward replied: 'I was terrified, to be honest. I was absolutely terrified. I had never experienced that level of violence towards me in my life.
'I didn't know who was going to come up at me next. I was scared of going after this male again and being punched in the face again.'
She said at one point she pressed her police radio emergency button to call for further assistance, but the impact of the punch had knocked the battery out.
She told Mr Birkby that other people in the pay station area were 'shouting stuff' and 'filming on their mobile phones'.
She said: 'Nobody came to assist. I felt everyone in that room was against us. To be honest, I was terrified.'
Pc Ward, who described herself as 'petite' and weighing eight stone, said she deployed her Pava incapacitant spray against two men who approached Mr Amaaz when he was on the floor after a Taser had been discharged on him.
She said: 'They just kept coming forward, trying to impede. I was telling them to go back, and they were not listening.'
Rosemary Fernandes, representing Amaaz, put it to Pc Ward that her client was 'taken by surprise' at the ticket machine and was 'shocked.'
She said: 'It is important you identify yourselves as police officers, isn't it?'
Pc Ward said: 'I don't think we had any time to do that. We didn't have any time for rational discussion with this male as it turned violently quickly.'
Ms Fernandes said: 'I put it to you that the defendant believed he was being attacked from behind, and it all happened extremely fast.
'It is the defence's case that he punched you in lawful self-defence on the basis that you were an assailant. Do you have any comment on that?'
Pc Ward said: 'I don't know how he felt, I was an assailant.
'He turned towards me and punched me in the face. He could see I was a police officer and he could see I was a female as well.'
Footage from a body-worn video camera of a female police colleague was played to the jury, which showed a bloodied and crying Pc Ward being comforted in the aftermath of the incident.
Amaaz is alleged to have assaulted Pc Marsden and Pc Ward, causing them actual bodily harm.
He is also accused of the assault of Pc Cook and the earlier Starbucks assault of Abdulkareem Ismaeil.
Amaad is alleged to have assaulted Pc Marsden, causing actual bodily harm.
Both men, from Rochdale, Greater Manchester, deny the allegations.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
39 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Police investigate ‘suspicious' second fire at Sydney childcare centre chain in four days
New South Wales police are investigating a suspicious fire at a second Sydney childcare centre, after another facility in the same chain caught fire three days ago. Police said they are investigating whether the two incidents – both at Play to Learn centres in Sydney – are linked. Emergency services were alerted at about 1.30am on Monday to reports of a fire at Play to Learn in Castle Hill, in Sydney's north-west, police said. The fire caused minor damage to the building. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email 'The fire is being treated as suspicious and detectives are investigating whether the incident is linked to a fire in Turramurra last week,' police said. The Play to Learn centre in Turramurra – in Sydney's upper north shore – caught fire on Friday. Police have established a crime scene around the Castle Hill centre and are investigating the causes of both incidents. Play to Learn has operated for 19 years and runs three centres in NSW. Operators of the Turramurra centre said their CCTV system captured the entirety of the incident and they would work closely with police on the investigation. The Play to Lean founder and director, Jade Luci, said the Turramurra centre's fire safety protocols had ensured there was minimal damage to the building. Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion 'We are heartbroken by this senseless act, but our commitment to safety and quality care remains stronger than ever,' Luci said. 'Our fire safety and surveillance systems worked exactly as they should. 'We have no concerns about safety when our families return, and we look forward to welcoming them back to a centre that remains as safe, nurturing and connected as ever.' More to come.
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Family of woman who was struck by Lufthansa CEO's wife is ‘destroyed' over her tragic death
The family of a woman who was killed in an alleged hit-and-run by the wife of Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr, has been 'destroyed' by her death. Gaia Costa, a 24-year-old babysitter, was walking across a pedestrian crossing in Sardinia earlier this week when she was struck, according to local outlet II Sole 24 ORE. 'At this time, we must respect the pain of a destroyed family,' said Antonello Desini, a lawyer for the Costa family, per Italian media. Desini added that his 'clients have the utmost confidence in the work of the Tempio Public Prosecutor's Office,' who will be handling the case. The New York Post reports that Costa's father is a well-known unionist for Confederazione Italiana Sindacati Lavoratori – one of the largest trade union organizations in Italy. The incident occurred on Tuesday at around 1.00 p.m. Local media reported that 51-year-old Vivian Spohr was driving a BMW X5 SUV with her daughter as a passenger, when the crash occurred. Witnesses told police that they saw Costa extend her arm to signal for the driver to stop, but instead watched as the vehicle accelerated, striking her. 'Vivian Spohr, who was involved in the tragic death, expresses her dismay and deep regret over this very serious accident, which has devastated a family, the town of Tempio, and the entire community of Gallura,' a statement released Friday by Spohr's attorneys read. The statement added that Spohr places herself 'at the complete disposal of the Italian judicial authorities for the necessary investigations and, while aware that such a great personal loss cannot be repaired, will take steps to mitigate its consequences.' Emergency services at the scene attempted to revive Costa for around 20 minutes before pronouncing her dead at the scene as a result of severe head trauma. Reports suggest authorities are investigating whether Spohr was using her phone at the time of the incident. Her alcohol and drug tests were negative, according L'Unione Sarda. The Spohr family had been spending time at a home they own on the island close to the community of Porto Cervo. After the collision, the family returned to Germany. Carsten Spohr has been the CEO of Deutsche Lufthansa AG since May 2014. He runs the Lufthansa Group, comprising the business segments of Network Airlines, Eurowings, Logistics, and MRO. They have over 100,000 employees worldwide. An autopsy on the body of Costa will be carried out on Wednesday.
Times
an hour ago
- Times
Delaying payouts for blood and Post Office victims is scandalous
Tens of thousands of people are thought to have received contaminated blood in the 1970s and 1980s LEON NEAL/GETTY IMAGES The familiar truism that justice delayed is justice denied has taken on a morbid sense of urgency for the many victims of the Post Office and infected blood scandals. Thanks to the courageous persistence of campaigners, public officials have been forced to face up to the moral enormity of these past wrongs: respectively, the most widespread miscarriage of justice, and gravest case of medical malpractice, in recent memory. Yet, those charged with remedying these injustices are continuing to drag their feet in awarding victims due redress. It has been estimated that at least 100 further victims of the infected blood scandal have died in the protracted interim between the conclusion of Sir Brian Langstaff's inquiry last year and being invited to apply for compensation. Likewise, some 345 former sub-postmasters are thought to have died before securing any financial restitution. Those still pursuing claims now find themselves caught in an interminable, tortuous, legalistic wrangle: one that seems cynically designed to delay and minimise the total amount of compensation that will eventually have to be paid out. • Keir Starmer: infected blood victims deserve justice now A report published last week into the human toll of the prosecutions made on the basis of the Post Office's defective Horizon IT system was unsparing in its grim detail. Its author, Sir Wyn Williams, concluded that the scandal had driven 13 people to suicide. Many other lives were blighted by addiction, divorce and financial ruin. Yet, the government's declared determination to correct these wrongs is belied by the gross deficiencies Sir Wyn identifies in the remuneration of those harmed. The Post Office compensation programme is byzantine in its complexity, with four separate schemes running in parallel. 3,700 former subpostmasters are yet to receive any payout. Many are locked in a legal limbo while their claims are subjected to excessively bureaucratic and adversarial scrutiny. Claimants are disadvantaged if they can't produce decades-old forms, often long lost. One sub-postmistress claims to have received a compensation offer worth just 0.5 per cent of her original claim. Sir Alan Bates, who championed his fellow sub-postmasters' cause, has fallen victim to what he describes as a 'quasi-kangaroo court', receiving a 'take it or leave it' quote amounting to less than half his submitted claim. Similarly shameful treatment has been meted out to those survivors among the 30,000 NHS patients infected with HIV and hepatitis by contaminated blood products. Last week, Sir Brian Langstaff warned that this compensation system too is creating 'obvious injustice'. Only 460 people have received full payouts, the result of a dilatory process forcing victims to be invited to make a claim rather than initiate one themselves. • Infected blood victims 'left suicidal' by compensation delays It is clear that government officials and civil servants tasked with disbursing payouts are subjecting comparatively powerless individuals to a level of rigoristic penny-pinching they would not dream of applying elsewhere. When set alongside the kind of financial waste casually tolerated within government, from the eye-watering sums sunk into HS2 to the near £2 billion in 'bounce back loan' fraud complacently written off by the very same department of business overseeing appeals by victims of the Post Office, the contrast is galling. Victims of the infected blood and Post Office scandals have had their right to restitution established by due process. Obstructionist officials should not be allowed to deny them justice.
