A female police officer who was left covered in blood with a broken nose after a violent brawl at Manchester Airport has spoken out for the first time, describing the incident as feeling “like an ambush” while bystanders laughed and filmed her.

PC Lydia Ward, 29, was assaulted while trying to arrest Mohammed Fahir Amaaz, 20, in July 2024. Amaaz had earlier head-butted and punched a passenger, Abdulkareem Ismaeil, at a Starbucks in Terminal 2.

Officers tracked Amaaz to a ticket machine, where he violently resisted arrest, unleashing around ten punches. One powerful blow struck PC Ward directly in the face, knocking her to the ground and leaving her temporarily unconscious with blood pouring from her nose. Amaaz also struck a firearms officer, PC Cook, twice during the chaotic confrontation.

In an interview with The Times, Ward recalled the hostile atmosphere: bystanders were filming the incident and laughing at the officers.

“I remember getting up. I was in a state of panic. I was in so much pain. I thought, ‘Oh my God, there’s people everywhere’,” she said. “This felt like an ambush and very anti-police, very much against us.”

Ward required surgery under general anaesthetic for her broken nose. Shocking footage of the incident later sparked widespread protests and accusations of police brutality, which left her feeling “silenced” as social media narratives painted the officers as the aggressors.

“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.’”

On Friday, Amaaz was jailed for three-and-a-half years for actual bodily harm. In a powerful victim impact statement, PC Ward confronted him in court, calling him a “coward” and declaring:

“You changed my face. You used me as a punch bag, but I will get back up and I will show you how strong I am.”

Amaaz was convicted of assaulting PC Ward, PC Cook, and the passenger at Starbucks. He and his brother were cleared of assaulting a third officer, PC Zachary Marsden. Two officers involved faced investigations by the Independent Office for Police Conduct.

Greater Manchester Police Chief Constable Sir Stephen Watson defended his officers, noting that assaults on police are common — with 35 of his officers assaulted every week on average. He highlighted the context: officers responding to a public head-butting incident were met with violence, followed by online vilification before the full facts emerged.

The case highlights the dangers police officers face daily, as well as the challenges of public perception shaped by partial video footage in the age of social media.