Manchester Airport Attack Retrial: Week One Recap

The first week of the high-profile retrial arising from last summer’s Manchester Airport Terminal 2 incident has concluded at Liverpool Crown Court, where jurors are considering a single outstanding allegation of assault occasioning actual bodily harm involving armed police officer PC Zachary Marsden.

The case is being reheard after an earlier jury returned verdicts on other counts but was unable to reach a decision on this specific allegation, leaving that issue to be determined in the present proceedings.

At the centre of the retrial is the prosecution’s case that Mohammed Fahir Amaaz, 21, and Muhammad Amaad, 26, both of Rochdale, unlawfully assaulted PC Marsden during the confrontation in the Terminal 2 car park on 23 July 2024.

Both men deny the charge, with the defence maintaining that they acted in lawful self-defence and in defence of one another during what they say was an unlawful police intervention.

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Over the course of the opening week, the jury, presided over by His Honour Judge Neil Flewitt KC, has been taken carefully through the sequence of events leading up to the confrontation, with the prosecution and defence advancing sharply different interpretations of the same footage and witness evidence.

The prosecution, led by Paul Greaney KC, alleges the brothers carried out a violent “fracas” against the armed officer, leaving him requiring hospital treatment.

The defence case, advanced by Imran Khan KC for Mr Amaaz and Chloe Gardner for Mr Amaad, has focused on whether the police use of force was lawful and whether the defendants’ response was reasonable in the circumstances as they perceived them.

A central issue running through the week has been the speed with which events unfolded and whether the force used by the defendants can properly be characterised as unlawful, or whether the legal defence of self-defence applies.

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The jury first heard evidence about the incident inside the terminal which is said to have prompted the armed response.

On the second day of the trial, Starbucks barista Justine Pakalne gave evidence describing the altercation that preceded police involvement.

She identified the younger brother as the initial aggressor, telling the court that the man in blue delivered a headbutt to another passenger at the café counter before saying: “Come outside and fight with me.”

Under cross-examination, she rejected the defence suggestion that the passenger had made death threats, stating that she was close enough to hear the exchange and did not hear any such remark.

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Following procedural delays and the presentation of CCTV and technical evidence on the third day, the focus of the trial shifted to the confrontation in the Terminal 2 car park.

On the fourth day, the court heard from PC Ellie Cook, one of the three responding armed officers.

Giving evidence-in-chief, she told jurors that she placed her hands on Mr Amaaz at a payment machine without formally informing him that he was under arrest.

She said she assumed he would have known police involvement was imminent following the earlier incident inside the terminal.

PC Cook told the jury that his bicep immediately tensed when she made contact, which she interpreted professionally as an indication that he was preparing to resist.

Her evidence was then tested in detail under cross-examination by Imran Khan KC.

The court was taken through slowed-down footage which showed PC Marsden delivering a kick to the head of the suspect.

PC Cook accepted that at the precise moment the kick was delivered, she did not consider the defendant to be a threat, though she maintained she did not witness the subsequent alleged stamp.

The scrutiny of police conduct continued into the fifth day of the retrial.

Representing Mr Amaad, Chloe Gardner suggested that the armed response had been chaotic and legally flawed, putting it to the officer that the incident was “a chaos of your own making.”

She further suggested that “the red mist” had descended on PC Marsden during the confrontation.

PC Cook firmly rejected those allegations, denying that her colleague had been “out of control” and disputing any suggestion that the officers had acted unlawfully.

She defended the tactical approach adopted by the officers, telling the court they relied on their collective operational experience rather than a formal verbal plan.

The jury also heard that a WhatsApp group titled “T2 incident” was created the day after the confrontation, which the officer described as a welfare measure.

By the end of the first week, jurors had been presented withs several key elements of both the prosecution and defence cases, with the central issue remaining whether the force used against PC Marsden amounted to unlawful violence or was a lawful act of self-defence.

The retrial is due to resume on Monday.