The dramatic moment when two brothers allegedly assaulted police officers as they tried to arrest them at Manchester Airport last summer was shown to a jury today.
Captured from two angles by CCTV cameras, it shows the violence which broke out when police attempted to detain Mohammed Fahir Amaaz at a pay station.
He had been identified as having headbutted a passenger at a Starbucks café in the arrivals area minutes before, Liverpool Crown Court has heard.
Jurors were told that the violence which broke out beside the car park pay station at 8.28pm on July 23 last year lasted for just three minutes.
Amaaz was seen to throw ten punches at the officers during the violence while his brother – Muhammad Amaad, 26, who is also on trial – threw six.
Amaaz also threw two elbow strikes and kicked the officers, one of whom suffered a broken nose, jurors heard.
The clips shown to the jury show Amaad at the pay station before his brother steps alongside him as the trio of officers enter the lobby.
Pc Zachary Marsden – who was armed – is then seen taking Amaaz by the arm and placing his other hand on the back of his head.
The armed officer said he lashed out as he feared one of the brothers was trying to take his pistol out of its holster during the struggle.
As he attempted to gain control of Amaaz in order to arrest him, he said he felt an ‘immense weight’ pressing on him from behind – coming from his brother Amaad, he later learnt.
The dramatic moment when two brothers allegedly assaulted police officers as they tried to arrest them at Manchester Airport last summer was shown to a jury today
Amaaz (in the blue) was seen to throw ten punches at the officers during the violence while his brother – Muhammad Amaad (far left), 26, who is also on trial – threw six
Pc Zachary Marsden – who was armed – had been trying to control Amaaz (pictured on the floor in the blue
Pictured is the moment one of the officers is forced to point a Tazer at Amaad
Pc Marsden said he could feel his gun – still in its holster – moving towards the front of his body.
He said his ‘initial fear’ was that ‘someone is trying to get to my gun’.
Had an assailant managed to get hold of his Glock semi-automatic, Pc Marsden told the court that would ‘pose an immediate lethal threat to anyone in the vicinity’.
Having ‘deemed’ that his assailant was ‘a threat’, Pc Marsden said he struck Amaad in the face with his first in an attempt to push him away.
But the officer said Amaad – who was ‘taller and larger build than me’ – then grabbed his body armour, dragged him to the bench and subjected him to ‘blows from all directions’.
Pc Marsden said he had been assaulted on duty multiple times.
But he said: ‘I can confidently say these are the hardest I’ve ever felt in my life.’
During the attack he said his glasses fell off, meaning he could not see clearly more than an arm’s length in front of his face due to his short-sightedness.
‘Throughout the incident I was fearful for my firearm,’ he added.
Amaad (left) and Amaaz (right) at Liverpool Crown Court during an earlier court hearing
Pictured is the moment Amaaz appears to lash out at one of the officers hitting them
As Pc Marsden attempted to gain control of Amaaz in order to arrest him, he said he felt an ‘immense weight’ pressing on him from behind – coming from his brother Amaad (pictured bottom right grappling with an officer in CCTV footage)
Having ‘deemed’ that his assailant was ‘a threat’, Pc Marsden said he struck Amaad (pictured right) in the face with his first in an attempt to push him away.
Two female officers, PC Ellie Cook – also armed – and PC Lydia Ward – who was unarmed – take had been trying to deal with Amaaz when his brother Amaad approached from behind (left)
Two female officers, PC Ellie Cook – also armed – and PC Lydia Ward – who was unarmed – take his other arm.
His brother Amaad then approaches from behind and takes hold of Pc Marsden who responds by throwing a punch.
Amaad then puts his hand around Pc Marsden’s throat and forces him towards a seating area where he punches him twice in the head.
As Amaad throws further punches, his brother Mohammed Fahir Amaaz punches and elbows the female officers – first PC Cook and then PC Ward – to their heads.
After punching Pc Marsden six times, Amaad is then seen sitting with both hands behind his head while the officer draws his Taser.
At that point, jurors were told the footage shows how Amaaz throws a series of punches at Pc Marsden, who falls to the ground.
Then Pc Cook is seen firing her Taser at Amaaz who also falls to the ground.
Officers are later seen on CCTV deploying their Tasers before hitting Amaaz with it
Amaaz appeared to still be grappling with one officer before he was hit with the Taser shot
Meanwhile Pc Marsden gets to his feet and is seen kicking Amaaz’s head and also stamping towards it, apparently without making contact.
The brothers’ mother is seen in the footage leaning over Amaaz as Pc Marsden pushes her head with his Taser before pointing it at Amaad, who is still seated.
Additional officers then arrive in response to Pc Marsden pressing the emergency button on his radio and both brothers are handcuffed.
Three onlookers are then pushed away by Pc Marsden before the brothers are led away.
The court was then shown CCTV of the incident outside the pay stations from two angles before body-worn video footage from three officers was played to the jury.
In the body-worn video, PC Cook can be heard screaming at Amaaz to ‘Get down now!’
Someone else shouts ‘You piece of s***’.
One of the female officers can be heard crying in distress as a colleague shouts ‘Get on the f****** floor!’.
Amid the sound of shouts and screams, video from one of the back-up officers captures him shouting at Amaad: ‘You f****** move, I’ll smash your f****** face in.’
As he attempted to lift the handcuffed suspect from the floor the officer calls him a ‘f****** piece of s***’.
The armed officer who attempted to arrest one of the brothers before being repeatedly punched was the first prosecution witness.
Pc Zachary Marsden stood in the witness box wearing a grey suit, white shirt, black tie, brown shoes and glasses.
He said he had been an armed officer for 15 months at the time of the incident.
Jurors at Liverpool Crown Court were shown CCTV footage of Amaaz (red dot) lashing out at Abdulkareem Ismaeil in front of a number of children
Amaaz can be seen first headbutting Mr Ismaeil before punching him with his left fist as other family members gathered around
This is the moment a man was allegedly headbutted in Starbucks by one of the brothers accused of assaulting police officers in Manchester Airport
That evening he was in his full ‘operational uniform’ including a baton, handcuffs, incapacitant spray, Taser and Glock 17 semi-automatic pistol, he said.
The firearm was in a holster on his hip with a round in the chamber ready to fire, and he was equipped with two magazines each containing 16 rounds.
Pc Marsden said he and PC Cook were in their armed response vehicle when a call came in regarding ‘two Asian men fighting outside Starbucks’.
He activated the vehicle’s blue lights and they set off on a ‘grade one urgent response’, he said.
Arriving at Starbucks in Terminal 2 arrivals they found an Asian man dressed in black ‘holding onto his face,’ Pc Marsden said.
The man told him there had been ‘a disagreement on the plane’ involving ‘an elderly Asian female’, he told jurors.
‘He then went on to say that whilst outside Starbucks he’d been headbutted by a young Asian male in blue.’
The officer said that as there had been an allegation of ‘quite a serious assault’ they needed to ‘locate where the suspect was’ with the intention of arresting him on suspicion of actual bodily harm.
Pressed by Paul Greaney KC, prosecuting, on why he believed he had grounds to arrest the suspect, Pc Marsden said it was ‘to prevent his disappearance’ and ‘further harm to our victim’ as well as to enable a prompt investigation.
As he and Pc Cook – now joined by Pc Ward – headed towards the car park where the suspect had been seen heading, Pc Marsden said they received more information over their radios.
They were told that from analysis of CCTV of the headbutt, the suspect – Amaaz – was wearing blue shorts and was on his way to the pay stations.
Pc Marsden said he decided he would carry out the arrest himself and put his body worn camera into standby mode.
Asked by Mr Greaney why later in the incident his camera cut out, Pc Marsden said he believed it was ‘when my attacker was on my back’.
‘Whilst hitting me he’s managed to dislodge the wire,’ he added.
Jurors have been told that the two brothers attacked police with a ‘high level of violence’ after officers tried to arrest one for headbutting a stranger at an airport.
On Friday Liverpool Crown Court was shown CCTV footage of Amaaz lashing out at Abdulkareem Ismaeil in front of a number of children.
The two brothers can be seen on CCTV travelling through the airport last July
Wearing a blue hoodie, the 20-year-old can be seen headbutting Mr Ismaeil in the face and punching him.
Last week Mr Greaney told the court the brothers, from Rochdale, had gone to the airport with a young nephew to collect their mother, who was arriving on a flight from Qatar.
He said something happened between Mr Ismaeil, who was travelling on the same flight with his wife and three children, and the brothers’ mother that left her ‘unhappy’.
He added: ‘The defendants met their mother in the arrivals area of Terminal 2 and began to walk to the car park with her.
‘As they did so, they passed a Starbucks. 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.’
Mr Greaney said police traced the brothers to the terminal’s car park payment area.
Three officers, PC Zachary Marsden and PC Ellie Cook – both armed – and PC Lydia Ward – who was unarmed – approached the brothers.
Mr Greaney said: ‘The officers attempted to move Mohammed Fahir Amaaz away from a payment machine to arrest him, but he resisted, and his brother Muhammad Amaad intervened.
‘Both assaulted PC Marsden.
‘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.’
The jury was shown CCTV and body-worn camera footage that showed the violent confrontation as stunned passengers watched – with many of them filming the events on mobile phones.
PC Marsden and PC Ward took hold of Amaaz by the shoulder and the arm as he tried to pay for his parking.
The CCTV shows Amaaz lashing out at the officers and throwing punches at PC Cook and PC Ward, hitting her on the nose, before he was Tasered.
The footage also showed PC Marsden aiming a kick to Amaaz’s head, followed by a stamping motion as his mother knelt beside him on the floor.
Mr Greaney said PC Mark Flanagan, who assisted in the aftermath, ‘used foul language’, shouting at Muhammed Amaad: ‘If you move, I will smash your f****** face in.’
Mr Greaney told jurors they were being shown the full footage because he expected criticism of the officers from the defence.
He said it was ‘not a complicated case’ because the events were caught on CCTV, adding: ‘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.’
Mr Greaney said the defendants would say ‘that at all stages they were acting in lawful self-defence or in defence of the other’, but this was ‘simply false’.
He added: ‘Nothing can justify the violence toward the officers.’
‘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 assault by beating, two charges of assault causing actual bodily harm, and a charge of assault by beating of a police officer acting as an emergency worker.
Amaad denies one charge of assault causing actual bodily harm relating to PC Marsden.
The trial continues.
