Jade Akoum is an extraordinary woman, by turns a grieving sister, a ceaseless campaigner for answers and - if she didn't already have enough on her plate - the mother of four children.
For almost four years, she has endured tragedy and crushing disappointment the rest of us can never imagine.
Most people by now are familiar with those heartbreaking pictures of her little brother Yousef Makki, beaming proudly in his Manchester Grammar School uniform with the prospect of a remarkable life stretching out in front of him.
READ MORE: Shocking CCTV captures Yousef Makki's final moments before he's stabbed to death
Heartbreaking because his future was so tragically cut short one night in March 2019 when he was fatally stabbed in affluent Hale Barns many miles away from his home in Burnage. He was a talented lad from a humble background who was mixing with rich kids. If there was a poverty of ambition, he didn't show it: he told anyone who would listen he wanted to be a heart surgeon.
For his big sister Jade, Yousef's death was merely the start of the family's torment.
The family quickly learned that 17-year Yousef had been stabbed to death by his rich pal, Joshua Molnar, also 17.
Jade, her mother Debbie and father Ghaleb watched in despair when the jury acquitted Molnar, now 21, of murder and manslaughter in the crown court trial that followed. Molnar told the jury Yousef pulled a knife first and he acted in self-defence.
It was no consolation to them that Molnar was handed a 16-month detention and training order after admitting possessing the knife which inflicted the fatal injury and lying to police at the scene.
Fellow MGS student Adam Chowdhary, then 17 but now 20, from Hale Barns, who described Yousef as his 'best friend', was acquitted of perverting the course of justice. He was given a four-month detention order after admitting possession of a flick knife, one of two he claimed he and Yousef had jointly ordered online during a break from lessons at MGS.
The pair were soon released from relatively short custodial sentences, and Jade set about seeking answers for Yousef.
Jade's mother Debbie, 55, died in May, 2020, during lockdown. She had never recovered from Yousef's death and died 'of a broken heart', according to her family.
Jade started raising money and used it to fight for an inquest into the death, one of the few courtroom battles she has won. She and her lawyers asked the coroner to return an unlawful killing verdict.
But more crushing disappointment was around the corner. After a seven-day inquest held at Stockport Coroners' Court in 2021, Senior South Manchester Coroner Alison Mutch said she could not reach any firm conclusions. She said the precise details of the death 'could not be ascertained'.
At a press conference later that day, the disappointment didn't have to be expressed in words by Jade. Her pain was obvious. To her, it felt like a terminal blow in her fight for answers. She said was 'disgusted'.
Jade vowed to fight on.
Tentative plans were made to seek a judicial review, but she and her barrister Matthew Stanbury were all too aware how rare it is for the High Court to overturn decisions of the state.
A Channel 4 documentary, Killed By A Rich Kid, was broadcast and, then, the Makki family was delighted and surprised in equal measure when their application for a full judicial review succeeded. It took place late last year when two High Court judges were urged to quash the original inquest and instigate a new one.
On Friday (Jan 20) those judges agreed to overturn the original inquest. In one telling passage in a high critical judgment, Lady Justice Macur wrote of the coroner: "She had not analysed the accounts sufficiently or at all to address the preponderance of the evidence in one direction or another. There was no explanation as to why she was 'profoundly unsure' in these respects. Taken together, the evidence presented a compelling picture of an unlawful killing."
It was a rare courtroom victory for the Makki family who have grown used to defeat. For once, Jade was smiling when she spoke to reporters outside Manchester's Civil Justice Centre.
She spoke movingly about wanting to do the right thing in her brother's memory: "We can finally smile this time.
"It's a mixture of emotions, but it's amazing to finally get some good news. We're used to getting bad news.
"If it was bad news today it would have been the end of the road but we're so happy to have been given another opportunity.
"Hopefully this will be in front of the chief coroner, we never thought the original inquest asked enough questions.
"I feel my faith in the system has been restored after these 11 weeks. I've not been able to properly grieve yet but having hope now will help us massively. If we had lost it would have been horrible for my mental health, I've got the rest of my life to grieve."
Then Jade went back to her home in Burnage where she had more pressing matters to deal with: looking after her four children, aged two, four, five and 13.
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