Old images of injured Leicestershire PC falsely shared in connection to Manchester Airport incident

Two images of an injured female police officer are being shared widely on social media with false claims that they show injuries sustained during an incident at Manchester Airport on 23 July.

The posts, which are circulating on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook and Instagram, use two pictures of the same woman, one showing bruising to her eyes and a serious cut on her nose, the other a pixelated image of her bloody nose.

One caption on Facebook says: “Truth behind Manchester Airport incident”, while text within an image widely says: “This is what happened to the Female Police Officer at Manchester Airport.”

But contrary to the misleading claims, these pictures were not taken after the incident at the airport.

The images are of a Leicestershire PC named Maddie Hayes and were taken after she sustained a broken nose and a deep cut in an incident in Ashby de la Zouch, Leicestershire, in September 2020. The injury resulted in her having 17 internal and external stitches.

The incident reportedly occurred after she was punched after she placed a handcuff on one wrist of a 16-year-old boy who was being detained by other officers.

The boy, from Swadlincote, Derbyshire who could not be named for legal reasons which prohibit identifying children in court proceedings except in exceptional circumstances, was sentenced to a 12-month community order and told to pay £600 compensation in January 2021.

What do we know about the airport incident?

A video of a male police officer kicking and stamping on the head of a man lying prone on the ground at Manchester Airport has been shared widely [WARNING: violent content], both online and in the media in recent days.

A family solicitor for the man seen being kicked, who he named as Muhammad Fahir Amaaz, says he now has a cyst on his brain. 

The incident occurred on Tuesday, 23 July. However, details of what occurred before filming began are unclear. 

Assistant Chief Constable Wasim Chaudhry of Greater Manchester Police (GMP) said in a statement on 24 July that officers were called to Terminal 2 at 8.25pm to reports of an assault. An “alleged suspect” was seen on CCTV at a ticket machine in the car park and officers had attended to arrest him, GMP said.

GMP said that three officers were subject to a “violent assault”, including a female officer who suffered a broken nose, and were taken to hospital for treatment. In its first statement after the video began circulating the force also said there was a “clear risk” of firearms being taken from the officers.

In a subsequent statement, GMP said that a police officer has been suspended from all duties in relation to the incident and that a referral had been made to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) for a “full independent investigation”.

It also said that two men had been arrested on suspicion of assault, assault of emergency workers, affray and obstructing police. Two other men have also been arrested on suspicion of affray and assault of an emergency worker.

Misinformation can spread quickly during significant news stories. Full Fact has written about other viral posts that falsely identify individuals, including photos supposedly showing an asylum seeker who died aboard the Bibby Stockholm barge, a Sydney student falsely identified as the Bondi attacker in Australia and an Italian sports journalist whose image was shared as the man who shot at Donald Trump.