A fresh inquest has begun into the stabbing of a Manchester teenager killed by a wealthy young friend who was ultimately cleared of murder and manslaughter.
Yousef Makki, 17, died on a street in the affluent suburb of Hale Barns, Trafford, from a stab wound that pierced his heart on 2 March 2019.
It was inflicted by Joshua Molnar, then also 17, who claimed he acted in self-defence using a flickknife, accidentally stabbing Yousef, after the other boy pulled out a knife first.
Footage of Molnar at the scene was shown to South Manchester coroner’s court on Monday, showing Molnar topless having used his shirt to try to stem the flow of blood from Yousef’s chest.
He was crying, telling a police officer he didn’t know who had stabbed his friend but claiming that a silver hatchback Volvo had driven off. Molnar later admitted that was a lie and was jailed for 16 months for possession of a knife in a public place and perverting the course of justice by lying to police at the scene.
He stood trial for murder but was acquitted by a jury, who also found him not guilty of manslaughter. The trial heard that despite coming from an affluent background, he had become fixated with knives, living out “idiotic fantasies” of being a middle-class gangster.
The Manchester Central MP, Lucy Powell, has repeatedly raised the case as an example of how the criminal justice system favours wealthy white defendants. In parliament, she contrasted the case with others in her constituency “involving groups of young black men from Moss Side, who are all serving mandatory life sentences under joint enterprise”.
Referencing the killing at an event at the Labour party conference in Liverpool last week, Powell said: “If you’re 17, 18, and you’re white and from a leafy suburb, you are playing at being in a gang, but if you’re a young black person in central Manchester you are not playing, you are obviously in a gang.”
The case was the subject of a Channel 4 documentary last year called Killed by a Rich Kid.
Molnar’s co-defendant, Adam Chowdhary, was one of Yousef’s best friends at Manchester grammar school. He was given a four-month detention order after admitting possessing the knife that ultimately killed Yousef, but was cleared by the trial jury of perverting the course of justice.
The second inquest on Monday heard a recording of Chowdhary at the scene in Hale Barns claiming he did not know who had stabbed Yousef. The coroner Geraint Williams said Chowdhary was “disingenuous at best and dishonest at worst” as he professed his ignorance.
The inquest heard that 47 items were deleted from Chowdhary’s phone in the aftermath of Yousef’s death. Chowdhary has been ordered to give evidence in person to the new inquest later this week, along with Molnar.
Yousef’s family were deeply disappointed with the outcome of the trial and the first inquest, which was held in November 2021. Alison Mutch, the senior coroner for south Manchester, ruled out unlawful killing and accidental death as reasons for Yousef’s death, saying she could not establish the precise sequence of events leading up to the fatal incident.
Yousef’s family brought a judicial review in 2022, challenging the coroner’s finding that there was an insufficiency of evidence on the “central issue” of whether the killing was unlawful.
In January this year, two high court judges ordered a fresh inquest, ruling that the coroner’s inquiry was “insufficiently distilled” and that she did not explain how she reached her conclusions.
Yousef, who came from an Anglo-Lebanese family and lived in Burnage, south Manchester, had won a scholarship to attend the private Manchester grammar school and had dreamed of becoming a heart surgeon.
His sister Jade Aktoum told the inquest on Monday that Yousef was a “calm, beautiful and kind person” who was “inspirational to a lot of young people”. She said his loss “affects us deeply, even to this day”.
She has previously said she believes Yousef died as a “peacemaker” between Chowdhury and Molnar, who had fallen out earlier in the day. The inquest continues.
