Did the Manchester Airport brawlers get away with it?

In July 2024, Mohammed Fahir Amaaz and Muhammad Amaad were involved in a now infamous violent incident at Manchester Airport, in which they were filmed fighting with several police officers. Last week, after a five-week-long trial and nearly 20 hours of deliberations, a jury failed to reach a verdict on whether the two brothers were guilty of assaulting one of the police officers. This is the second time a jury has failed to do so. Rather than pursue the matter, the Crown Prosecution Service confirmed afterwards that the brothers would not face a third trial. Many are understandably outraged.

It’s worth recalling the airport incident in full. On 23 July 2024, Greater Manchester Police responded to reports that Amaaz had assaulted a member of the public, Abdulkareem Ismaeil, at a Manchester Airport Starbucks. Initial – and crucially partial – footage of the police response was quickly circulated online. It showed an officer, PC Zachary Marsden, kicking Amaaz while he was on the ground. This prompted anger from the activist class, and accusations of racism against the police.

Days later, a CCTV clip showing the whole incident was leaked to the media. It revealed that the two suspects had in fact been throwing punches at a male officer and two of his female colleagues. It became clear that serious violence had also been used by the men against police officers.

At the first trial in July 2025, Amaaz, the younger brother, was convicted of common assault against Ismaeil and two counts of actual bodily harm against female police officers, PC Lydia Ward and PC Ellie Cook. The first jury was unable, however, to reach a verdict on both brothers’ charge of causing actual bodily harm to PC Marsden. And now a second has found it equally as difficult.

Prosecuting counsel Paul Greaney KC said that although the count of actual bodily harm was serious and had attracted major public interest, it could not properly be described as one of ‘extreme gravity’. The brothers’ defence lawyers called the trial an ‘orgy of race hatred’.

The defence counsel’s claim that the trial was ‘an orgy of race hatred’ is outrageous. After all, we can all see what the footage shows. The defendants use serious violence against police officers in an airport. This must have been terrifying for those witnessing the incident. It could even have warranted a more ‘grave’ charge against the men. ‘Violent disorder’, perhaps, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in jail – although this charge requires ‘three or more’ people to be involved. Or maybe ‘affray’, which requires a person to ‘use or threaten unlawful violence towards another, with conduct such as would cause a person of reasonable firmness present at the scene to fear for their personal safety’. This would at least have addressed the fear experienced by members of the public confronted by the men’s actions.

Either way, it is frankly ridiculous to claim that Amaaz and Amaad are victims of prejudice, or ‘race hatred’, as their defence lawyer claimed. The juries in these trials clearly took their jobs extremely seriously, approached their task without fear or favour, heard a large amount of evidence and deliberated for many hours. The law requires a jury to reach a unanimous verdict initially, then a majority decision of at least 10 to two, or lower if jurors have been discharged. The fact that they failed to reach verdicts suggests they were split. The idea that the trial process was in any way racially prejudiced against the men is undermined by the careful decisions taken in each trial.

And what of the decision not to seek a third trial on the Marsden allegation? CPS guidance states that there is a ‘very clear presumption and expectation’ against a third trial after two juries have failed to agree. The leading authority is R v Bell [2010] EWCA Crim 3, in which the Court of Appeal said that a second retrial should be confined to a very small number of cases – namely those involving a crime of extreme gravity, and where the evidence that the defendant committed the crime remains very powerful. The CPS said that this case, serious though it was, did not meet that threshold.

Many among the public will disagree. The alleged assault on PC Marsden followed confirmed assaults against another officer and against a member of the public. This is not murder we are talking about, but it is still, when viewed in context, exceptionally serious. The outcry about the decision not to seek a third trial is therefore understandable, despite the CPS guidance.

The whole case leaves a bad taste in the mouth. It feels like these men have got away with a serious crime. Amaaz will be sentenced on 26 June for the assaults against the two female officers and a member of the public. We will have to see what the judge makes of the severity of his crimes.

Luke Gittos is a spiked columnist and author. His most recent book is Human Rights – Illusory Freedom: Why We Should Repeal the Human Rights Act, which is published by Zero Books. Order it here.