Mohammed Fahir Amaaz and Muhammad Amaad will not face a third trial over the Manchester Airport assault case after prosecutors failed to provide evidence, ending the last active route for another prosecution over the July 2024 confrontation.
The decision comes after a second jury at Liverpool Crown Court spent nearly 20 hours over a five-week trial trying to decide whether the brothers assaulted PC Zachary Marsden causing actual bodily harm. Judge Flewitt then instructed that not guilty verdicts be recorded against the pair, closing the case in court for now.
The brothers, from Rochdale in Greater Manchester, were filmed in a physical confrontation with Marsden at the airport in July 2024. Amaaz, 21, had already been remanded in custody last year after being convicted at the first trial of three counts of assault, including assaults on two other officers, while Amaad, 26, was found not guilty at that hearing.
The latest decision matters because it follows two separate juries that could not agree on the central allegation in the case. That is the part of the story that has kept Manchester Airport in the headlines for months: a single incident that produced different outcomes on different counts, and a retrial process that still failed to produce a final verdict on the assault allegation against Marsden.
The case also drew fierce online criticism of the police response, including allegations of racial discrimination and police brutality, after the footage spread widely. Marsden was suspended after the incident, and the force found itself under scrutiny as much for what happened on the floor of the terminal as for the criminal charges that followed.
Inside the courtroom, the legal threshold for trying the brothers again was always high. Prosecutors said a third trial would be pursued only in exceptional circumstances, and Paul Greaney KC told the court that the count on the indictment was serious and had attracted significant public interest, but could not properly be described as one of extreme gravity. That left little room for another attempt once the second jury also failed to reach agreement.
The broader row around the case was sharpened last month when Nigel Farage said at a 21 June press conference that there was a reluctance to prosecute those violent thugs in Manchester airport. Judge Flewitt later wrote that the comment was potentially contempt of court because it implied the defendants’ guilt, though the Attorney General’s Office confirmed no contempt proceedings were issued. For Amaaz and Amaad, the consequence is plain: no third trial will go ahead, and the courtroom chapter of the Manchester Airport case has effectively ended without a final jury verdict on the main assault count.
