Axe attack thug loses appeal over conviction

A GANGSTER who launched a brutal axe attack on an innocent tree surgeon has lost his bid to overturn his conviction.

- ANDREW BARDSLEY

Mohammed Awais Sajid, known as ‘Skinny’, brutally attacked Cameron Brooksbank, then aged just 17, in Rochdale.

Sajid was acquitted of attempted murder but found guilty of wounding with intent after a trial and was locked up for 18 years in 2019. He tried to have his conviction overturned during a hearing at the Court of Appeal in London, after claiming that a witness who saw him holding a blood-stained axe following the attack was lying.

But some of the country’s most senior judges refused the bid and Sajid remains in prison.

The case was recently featured on BBC documentary The Detectives, which provided behind-the-scenes access into a GMP investigation targeting organized crime in Rochdale. It emerged that Mr Brooksbank, who bravely gave evidence in court against Sajid, has since died.

The M.E.N. understands that Mr Brooksbank, 24, is believed to have died in ‘non-suspicious circumstances’, and an investigation by a coroner continues. He was attacked with an axe by Sajid following a ‘minor’ road rage incident, Minshull Street Crown Court heard previously.