Lawyer says police struck Pakistani grandmother with Taser during Manchester Airport incident

LONDON: A 56-year-old British Pakistani grandmother was struck in the face with a Taser by a police officer at Manchester Airport moments after he kicked and attempted to stamp on her son as he lay motionless face-down, according to the family’s lawyer.

Protests erupted in Rochdale and Manchester city centre after a video circulated on social media showed the kicking incident during an arrest at the airport on July 23 of two British Pakistani brothers who were at the airport to receive their mother Shameem Akhtar, 56, returning from Pakistan. More footage emerged days later which showed the immediate lead-up to the disturbance at the airport’s Terminal 2 car park pay station area.

Male and female officers tried to restrain Fahir Amaaz, 19, and Muhammad Amaad, 25, who were involved in a series of strikes and punches – with two women officers hit to the ground – before Mr Amaaz was tasered.

Shameem Akhtar, 56, and her sons, Mr Amaaz and Mr Amaad, appeared alongside their solicitor Aamer Anwar at a press conference in Manchester city centre to “set the record straight … after a deliberate attempt to smear the family”.

Mr Anwar said the family from Rochdale, Greater Manchester, had been left “devastated and traumatised” by the incident and had also been subjected to “horrific, racist and Islamophobic abuse on social media”.

The lawyer added: “The family wish to put on record that if the two young men sat next to me, and seen on video … stand accused of criminality, their family fully support that they must face robust, due legal process. The young men sat next to me do not have a single criminal conviction, not even a speeding ticket. In fact, members of the family are serving police officers with Greater Mancester Police (GMP) and other members of the family in other areas of the country. And Mr Amaad himself has undergone an interview process to join the GMP.”

At the press conference, photographs were distributed which showed bruising to the left side of Mrs Akhtar’s face – said to have been sustained in what the family described as the “pandemonium” that broke out at the pay station. Mrs Akhtar attempted to pull her son’s head away after the apparent stamping and thought the officer “could have killed her son at that point”, said Mr Anwar.