A female police officer has told jurors that “everything went black” after she was punched in the face during the violent confrontation at Manchester Airport.
PC Lydia Ward gave evidence at Liverpool Crown Court as the trial of brothers Mohammed Fahir Amaaz, 21, and Muhammad Amaad, 26, continued. The pair, both from Rochdale, deny assaulting armed officer PC Zachary Marsden during the incident at the Terminal 2 pay station on July 23, 2024.
The jury has already heard that Mohammed Fahir Amaaz was convicted at a previous trial of assaulting a man in a Starbucks at the airport, as well as assaulting PC Ward and PC Ellie Cook during the same sequence of events.
Giving evidence, PC Ward said she and her colleagues entered the pay station area to locate the suspect from the Starbucks incident, believing he was on his own. She said she took hold of Amaaz’s right arm while PC Marsden took his left, with the intention of making the arrest and applying handcuffs.
She told the jury the situation escalated quickly when Amaaz “tensed up”, which she took as a sign he was about to resist. She said Muhammad Amaad, who was dressed in grey, then interfered while officers were trying to remove his brother.
PC Ward said her attention remained on Amaaz while her colleagues focused on his brother. She then saw Amaaz kicking PC Marsden with what she described as “great force” in a “really violent” way.
“It was at that point I was very scared for all of us,” she said. “I was doing everything I could to pull him off and stop Zac getting hurt.”
She told jurors that when she turned, Amaaz punched her straight in the face.
“It was really forceful. I have never been punched in my life,” she said. “I fell backwards. Everything went black. I just remember coming around and I was really dizzy.”
PC Ward said she then saw blood and feared she would be assaulted again because the men were still not under control. She pressed her emergency button hoping other officers were on their way.
The officer also said she later used PAVA spray after two members of the public behaved in a “hostile” way towards her and ignored repeated instructions to get back.
The court heard she was examined in hospital later that night and found to have suffered a broken nose. She later underwent surgery.
Under cross-examination, the defence suggested there had been failures in gathering intelligence after the earlier Starbucks incident and in assessing the risk before officers moved in. PC Ward rejected those claims and said it had been a “dynamic job”.
“We have a male suspect, we need to arrest him, that’s it simply,” she said.
She also said there had been no chance to tell Amaaz he was under arrest before the situation turned violent.
The defence further alleged she had punched Amaaz in the throat and that the blow which broke her nose had been delivered in self-defence.
PC Ward denied punching him and rejected the self-defence claim.
“I don’t think it was in self-defence, I think he assaulted me,” she told the court. “I was trying to get him off my colleague that he was assaulting.”
She also said she did not see PC Marsden kick Amaaz in the head or stamp on him, telling the jury she could not remember those moments because she had just been punched in the face.
The trial continues.