Video appears to show lead-up to Manchester Airport incident

New video is thought to show the moments before a police officer apparently kicked and stamped on the head of a man lying on the ground at Manchester Airport on Tuesday.

In the video, police appear to attempt to restrain one man, before a second man tries to intervene and a fight breaks out.

A constable was suspended after a different clip of the same incident circulated online.

The officer is facing a criminal investigation for assault by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) and has been served with a disciplinary notice for potential gross misconduct.

Greater Manchester Police (GMP) said the officer’s actions had come after he and other colleagues were “violently attacked” in a car park in Terminal 2 at about 20:30 BST on Tuesday.

The new footage, exclusively obtained by Manchester Evening News, appears to show three police officers attempting to detain a man, before a second man tries to intervene.

The BBC has not independently verified the source of this video.

The second man, who is wearing grey clothes, struggles with an officer, whom we shall call Officer X for clarity’s sake, and punches are thrown. Meanwhile, the first man, who is dressed in blue, punches two other officers to the ground.

Officer X manages to break away and points a taser at the man in grey, at which point the man in blue runs over and punches Officer X.

Then another officer appears to use his taser on the man in blue who falls to the ground along with Officer X.

An older woman, who can be seen falling over earlier in the video, crawls over to the man in blue, who is lying rigid on the floor.

Having picked himself up, Officer X aims his own taser at the man in blue on the floor before appearing to kick him in the head.

The new footage ends there, but the original video appears to show Officer X then stamping on the man in blue’s head.

BBC Verify analysis of five social media videos of the incident suggests the violence did not end here.

Another video appears to show Officer X later approaching the man in grey, stamping on his thigh, and hitting him on the back of the head with a taser.

Another officer appears to pepper-spray bystanders who are filming the incident.

The newest video is not included in the Verify coverage.

A crowd of people protested outside a police station in Greater Manchester on Thursday, accusing the police of institutional racism.

The family of the man who was stamped on has appealed for “calm in all the communities”, according to Rochdale MP Paul Waugh, who spoke with them after the incident.

He told BBC Breakfast the family were “acutely aware” there were “extremists of all sides who are keen to hijack this incident for their own ends”.

He said the “strong message” the family wanted to give is that they have “no political agenda whatsoever”.

A police spokesman said there had been a “clear risk” the firearms officers could have had their weapons taken from them, and three officers had been taken to hospital, one with a broken nose.

Four men, aged 19, 25, 28 and 31, were arrested in the aftermath on suspicion of affray and assault, and later bailed.

The force said it understood the “deep concerns” that had been “widely raised” over the footage.

Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham said he hopes the release of more footage gives people a “fuller picture” of what happened in what was a “complicated situation” – adding that he was worried about online speculation and people jumping to conclusions.

“The risk is, of course, is you get consequences from those judgements and that furore builds,” Mr Burnham told the BBC’s Breakfast programme on Sunday.

“That can have an impact on communities, can have an impact on public order.”

The mayor said he understood the frustration that more video had not been able to be made public due to the incident being part of a live investigation.

“People now need to step back and allow the IOPC’s criminal investigation into the officer’s conduct to move forward, alongside the parallel GMP investigation into other potential offences, so that a complete picture can be presented,” Mr Burnham said earlier.

Human rights lawyer Aamer Anwar told BBC Newsnight he was disappointed that leading politicians, including Mr Burnham, had asked people to consider the context to the incident.

There was “no justification” for a police officer to act this way, he said, adding that the context was “irrelevant”.