The two brothers at the centre of the Manchester Airport brawl that shocked the nation were handed more than £113,000 in taxpayer-funded legal aid. The Mail has the story:
Mohammed Fahir Amaaz, 21, from Rochdale, was convicted at Liverpool Crown Court last year of assaulting PC Lydia Ward, PC Ellie Cook and a Starbucks customer at the airport in July 2024. In June, he was jailed for three and a half years.
But he and his brother Muhammad Amaad, 26, were cleared of causing GBH against another officer, PC Zachary Marsden, after juries in two trials failed to reach verdicts and the prosecution declined to press for a second retrial.
PC Marsden had been filmed kicking Amaaz in the face, he said to defend his female colleagues.
Footage of the frenzied assault shocked the public with Amaaz jailed for three and a half years in May after being convicted at the first trial of assaults on two female police officers in the incident. Amaad was acquitted.
Now new figures released to the the Mail in a Freedom of Information request show Amaaz received a total of £78,420.42 made up of £59,200.70 in barristers’ fees and £19,219.72 in solicitors’ bills.
Meanwhile, Amaad received £34,694.56 made up of £16,450.94 in barristers’ costs and £18.243.62 for his solicitors.
In addition, the cost of prosecuting the pair is estimated to come in at close to £2 million.
Worth reading in full.
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I always thought very few people are entitled to Legal Aid… How come foreigners can get it? And violent ones at that!
Utter disgrace. I don’t know who are the most despicable – the brothers or the lawyers defending the indefensible.
Maybe it’s time to make people who are found guilty repay as much legal aid as the government can get it’s hands on e.g. 5-10% of salary or benefits including state pension until the debt is paid off or they die/leave the country. This would presumably encourage more people to plead guilty if a lawyer tells them they have no realistic chance of being acquitted so they don’t spend decades in debt.
Well. That’s the way the system works… irritating as it is.
Were their new suits funded by the taxpayers too?
is that their lawyer in the middle? What the holy hell is he wearing?
£113,000 worth of silk suit, by the look of it.