Mohammed Fahir Amaaz, who attacked two police officers and a member of the public at Manchester Airport, has been refused leave to appeal against his sentence.
Amaaz was jailed for three-and-a-half years in June this year after being found guilty of the attacks. He was 21 at the time. The incident came after Amaaz and his older brother Muhammad Amaad, 26, attended the airport to pick up their mother from a flight on July 23, 2024.
Guilty verdicts and appeal refusal
Amaaz was found guilty of attacking an armed officer, PC Ellie Cook, and an unarmed officer, PC Lydia Ward. He was also convicted of headbutting a man named Abdulkareem Ismaeil after confronting him at a Starbucks in the terminal.
Amaaz, from Rochdale, sought leave to appeal the sentence, but the application was refused on Friday following an hour-long Court of Appeal hearing. The case was heard at the Royal Courts of Justice in front of Lord Justice Jeremy Baker, Mr Justice Bryan and Mr Justice Dexter Dias. There has been no appeal against the conviction, the court was told.
Legal grounds and court proceedings
Amaaz's legal team put forward what they argued to be grounds of appeal, alleging in one an 'error' in a direction given to the jury by the trial judge. But after summarising the case, the three Court of Appeal judges refused the application.
Liverpool Crown Court heard how PC Ward suffered a broken nose as police bodycam footage showed her bloodied and sobbing, while Amaaz knocked PC Cook to the ground with a series of elbows and punches during the attack. The officers had responded to reports that a male fitting Amaaz's description had headbutted the Starbucks customer, Mr Ismaeil, minutes earlier.
Violence and separate allegations
Prosecutors said Amaaz resisted their attempts to take him outside and he went on to use a “high level of violence”.
Two juries could not reach a verdict over a separate allegation that Amaaz also caused actual bodily harm to firearms officer PC Zachary Marsden. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said it would not pursue a third trial against Amaaz and his brother, Mr Amaad, then 26, who faced a single count of assaulting PC Marsden, and they were formally acquitted by the judge. They denied the charges they faced.
