Man who punched female police officers at Manchester Airport jailed

A man who punched two female police officers at Manchester Airport as they tried to arrest him for headbutting a man in a Starbucks cafe has been jailed for three and a half years. Mohammed Fahir Amaaz, 21, from Rochdale, was convicted at Liverpool Crown Court last year of assaulting PC Lydia Ward, PC Ellie Cook and a Starbucks customer at the airport in July 2024. Sentencing had been delayed for a re-trial on additional charges that Amaaz had also assaulted a male police officer - PC Zachary Marsden - but the jury again failed to reach a decision and he was cleared. In a statement read to the court earlier Ward, whose nose was broken in the attack, said: "What you did was cowardly." Judge Neil Flewitt KC, passing sentence, told Amaaz he was the "aggressor" and said both assaults were "prolonged and unprovoked". The court heard the fracas, outside Terminal 2, was recorded in footage widely circulated on social media.