Female police officer who had nose broken in Manchester Airport brawl speaks out in first interview
A police officer who was left with a broken nose after a brawl broke out at Manchester Airport has spoken out about how she believes cops were painted as the 'bad guys'.
Bodycam footage taken by one of Lydia Ward's colleagues captured her sobbing as blood poured down her face after Mohammed Fahir Amaaz struck her.
The 29-year-old was one of the officers who was at the heart of the incident in July 2024 which sparked national outrage and resulted in her attacker being jailed for three-and-a-half years.
Amaaz, 21, was sentenced at Liverpool Crown Court earlier this week, a year after he was convicted of assaulting Ward and causing her actual bodily harm during the fracas that erupted in Terminal 2.
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Fellow officer Ellie Cook also suffered an injured jaw after police responded to reports of a member of the public being headbutted in the airport at a Starbucks café.
The pair spotted Amaaz fitting the description they had been given and tried to take him outside, but the young man from Rochdale resisted the officers attempts and responded with a 'high level of violence', the court heard.
Footage of the incident which subsequently went viral showed how disorder then broke out as Amaaz knocked Cook to the ground with a series of elbows and punches.
The video showed how another responding officer who was armed, PC Zachary Marsden, appeared to stamp on Amaaz’s head while deploying a taser. The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) are still investigating this.
It sparked a huge debate over the level of force used by police, while accusations that racism played a part in the volatile nature of the situation also arose.
In her first ever interview, Ward has now opened up about her ordeal - and said that the public was missing key context about what had unfolded in the moments prior to this.
She recalled how Amaaz had attacked both her and Cook, causing her to black out, before she then roused in a 'state of panic and so much pain'. She then jumped up to help handcuff the 21-year-old.
Sharing her recollection of the incident, she described how the atmosphere in Terminal 2 felt 'hostile' and said she noticed that various people were filming what was unfolding.
'It felt like we’d been ambushed'
"There were two men shouting and being aggressive," Ward told The Times. "People were filming us. Laughing at us. There was a lot of noise going on. One of the men said something, laughing and being abusive.
"I thought they were all one group at the time but apparently they weren’t. It felt like we’d been ambushed. This felt like an ambush and very anti-police, very much against us."
Ward - who stands at 5ft2ins tall - said she couldn't wrap her head around why the incident escalated to such epic proportions, saying there were many 'other ways' it could have gone and that the violence 'felt so random'.
She revealed that she managed to keep her composure during the incident, but 'broke down' after a male colleague glanced at her blood-soaked face.
Speaking about the aftermath of the incident and the abuse she received on social media, Ward said she was 'really angry' by the narrative that was being spun online.
"I felt silenced [after the assault]," she told the publication. "I saw so much stuff on social media. People making videos giving their opinions on it, people commenting and calling it racist and police brutality.
"I thought: ‘That’s not the full story. I’m the one lying in bed on my back with a broken nose, barely able to breathe, watching all this stuff making out we were the bad guys'."
Further footage which captured Amaaz taking aim at her and Cook then surfaced and although this meant people could then 'decide themselves what is right and what was wrong', Ward says she continued to be tormented by trolls.
She was left 'really upset' after seeing comments online branding her 'useless' after nine years of working as a police officer.
"I’d done the job I was sent to do, no matter what people said on social media," Ward went on to say.
Doctors informed her she would need nose realignment surgery due to the injury she sustained and she believes it no longer looks how it used to.
Ward told the court that she also sports a small scar on her nose now, which will 'forever remind her' of what unfolded on that day.
According to the cop, who is now a police sergeant, Amaaz did not show any remorse during the court process and did not offer any apologies.
"Even if you think you’re partially not to blame for it all, you need to take some responsibility for some of your actions," Ward added. "That’s how I feel about that situation."
Sentencing Amaaz, Judge Neil Flewitt KC ruled that all three assaults were 'entirely unprovoked'.
Olivia Burke