Emotional moment father of Yousef Makki, 17, who was stabbed to death by friend he met at £13,380-per-year grammar school breaks down as he describes seeing his son’s body in the mortuary
- Viewers of Channel 4’s Killed by a Rich Kid were left in floods of tears last night
- Documentary explored how Joshua Molnar, 17, fatally stabbed Yousef Makki
- He was later cleared of murder and manslaughter on the basis of self-defence
- Many of those watching said they were ‘raging’ over the ‘miscarriage of justice’
Viewers of Channel 4’s Killed By A Rich Kid were left in floods of tears last night after Yousef Makki’s family described visiting his body in a mortuary after learning he had been stabbed to death.
Yousef, 17, died following a confrontation with his friend Joshua Molnar in upmarket Hales Barnes, Cheshire, during the early evening of March 2, 2019.
The teenager, who earned a scholarship to attend the £13,380 per year Manchester Grammar School, suffered a 12-centimetre deep wound to the chest inflicted with a flick knife.
Molnar, then also 17, was cleared of murder and manslaughter on the basis of self-defence, but was sentenced to 16 months’ imprisonment for possession of a knife and perverting the course of justice by lying to police at the scene.
He was also sentenced for perverting the course of justice by lying to police at the scene.
The case was revisited during the Channel 4 documentary last night, where Yousef’s family tearfully described their horror at seeing him in the mortuary.
While his sister Jade said she ‘collapsed’ upon seeing his body, his father Ghaleb Makki explained: ‘I felt, “Come on Yousef, please.” I didn’t want to believe, standing in front of my son, his dead body, no, no no no – this isn’t real.
‘He shouldn’t be dead, no, god doesn’t allow it.’
Many of those watching were left in floods of tears over the programme, with one writing: ‘Heartbreaking and rage inducing!’
Viewers of Channel 4’s Killed By A Rich Kid were left in floods of tears last night after Ghaleb Makki described visiting Yousef Makki’s body in a mortuary after learning he had been stabbed to death
Yousef, 17, died following a confrontation with his friend Joshua Molnar in upmarket Hales Barnes, Cheshire, during the early evening of March 2, 2019
Meanwhile another wrote: ‘One of the saddest and most frustrating documentaries I’ve seen in a long time. Poor Yousef and his family. Always the innocent who suffer the most.’
A third wrote: ‘Absolutely devastating poor, poor mother and whole family. I have such admiration for Yousefs two friends that gave evidence and are helping his family, such strong young men.
‘What a case, this awful.’
Footage in the documentary seen for the first time the moment Molnar told police how he had found injured Yousef lying on the ground.
Many of those watching the programme about the teenager’s death called it ‘heartbreaking’ and ‘rage-inducing’
He also tells the officer that he ‘doesn’t know’ what happened, that he had found his friend ‘coughing up blood’ and that he had tried to save his life.
In body camera footage of the arrest, Ben can be heard saying: ‘These two were with him, don’t let them go.’
Recalling her experience of the crime, senior paramedic Joanne Hedges explained: ‘The first thing I saw was Yousef lying on the floor against the curb on the main road.
‘His breathing was very very shallow, absolutely drenched in blood. He’d been stabbed in his chest, straight into his heart, with a very, very small entry wound.
‘It was beyond serious. Among the chaos, a text message came up from his mum. That’s what hit home for me, she was at home, totally unaware of the horrors we were facing.
Yousef’s sister Jade said she ‘collapsed’ upon seeing his body and explained how she would always remember her ‘perfect’ younger brother
Yousef’s mother Debbie recalled how police appeared at her doorstep to tell her about her son’s death, saying: ‘The policeman just stood there and said, “You have to come with me.”
‘Your heart just goes because that just doesn’t happen. We’d never had a knock at the door from police ever.’
Joanne said that ‘minutes after’ she was told Yousef had died, she could ‘hear his mother screaming’.
In the documentary, Yousef’s tearful sister Jade Akoum, who is leading a campaign for the case to be revisited, explained: ‘They took me to the mortuary. I think I just collapsed on the floor, it was like the world had ended. It didn’t feel real.
Jade explained: ‘I remember looking at his face, his hair was still perfectly gelled, he had a little bit of stubble where his beard was nearly growing.
Jade wept as she described her grief for her younger brother, confessing that ‘even strong people get tired’
‘He was nearly a man but to me, he was just my little baby brother, that’s just how I see him.’
Meanwhile they described the pain of hearing the ‘not-guilty’ verdicts from the jury, with Ghaleb saying: ‘I felt like I was hit by lightning, I felt like I wanted to go through the glass.’
Debbie said: ‘There is never a normal day when you can just wake up and go about your everyday life. It consumes every single moment of your life.
‘You have to keep fighting everyday, you can’t give up.
‘The main thing that is hurting us as a family, is we don’t know what happened in the last minutes of his life.’
Joshua Molnar (left, pictured with mother Stephanie), then 17, who was sentenced to 16 months in a young offenders’ institution after he pleaded guilty to possessing a knife
His mother Debbie Makki – who tested negative for coronavirus – died of suspected sepsis this morning aged 55 in May 2020.
In the documentary, Jade wept as she described her grief: ‘Even strong people get tired, it gets too much sometimes.
‘I’m trying to be strong but he was my brother. All the details that they said and how he died and we weren’t there for him and I’ll never forgive myself that I couldn’t be there.
‘He died on his own miles away from where he comes from and we were thinking he was safe.’
In body camera footage, taken moments after Yousef’s stabbing in March 2019, Molnar can be seen topless while speaking to police.
Adam Chowdhary, also then a pupil at Manchester Grammar School, was given a four-month detention order for possession of a knife
As paramedics arrive to tend to Yousef who is on the ground by a tree, a police officer is captured on his own body-cam telling sobbing Molnar: ‘Right, come over here. What’s happened?’
Molnar says: ‘We were walking over the motorway…. Then Yousef Makki’s walked ahead. We’ve come round the corner and he’s just fallen over.
‘We’ve come round the corner. We’ve come sprinting over and the guy was just coughing up blood… I’ve taken my shirt off and I’ve put pressure on it.
‘But he hasn’t been able to say anything and he’s been, like, gasping for breath.’
Yousef’s mother Debbie Makki – who tested negative for coronavirus – died of suspected sepsis this morning aged 55 in May 2020
Yousef Makki inquest coroner says more children may die from Britain’s deadly knife culture
A coroner probing the stabbing of Yousef Makki has said more children may die as a result of Britain’s deadly knife culture after finding the schoolboy was killed with a weapon bought ‘with ease during school breaktime’.
Yousef, 17, died following a confrontation with his friend Joshua Molnar in upmarket Hales Barnes, Cheshire, during the early evening of March 2, 2019.
The teenager, who earned a scholarship to attend the £13,380 per year Manchester Grammar School, suffered a 12-centimetre deep wound to the chest inflicted with a flick knife.
Molnar, then also 17, was cleared of murder and manslaughter on the basis of self-defence, but was sentenced to 16 months’ imprisonment for possession of a knife and perverting the course of justice by lying to police at the scene.
Mutual friend Adam Chowdhary, who was present during the fatal incident, was cleared of charges of perverting the course of justice and conspiracy to rob, and given a four-month detention order for possession of a knife.
An inquest into Yousef’s death at Stockport Coroner’s Court concluded in November, with Senior Coroner Alison Mutch ruling the ‘precise circumstances’ of his death ‘cannot, on the balance of probabilities. be ascertained’.
However, in a report published on Friday, she has written to Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi to highlight concerns over the UK’s deadly knife culture.
She says: ‘The inquest heard evidence that there was a culture amongst some teenagers who saw the possession of knives as being impressive and did not understand the risks that are inherent in the carrying of knives.
‘The knife that Yousef was stabbed with was a that had been purchased with ease during break time at school.
‘It was clear from the evidence that schools and education play a vital role in attitudes to carrying knives by teenagers.’
The officer asks him: ‘How’s that happened?
Molnar replies ‘I don’t know’ and repeats he had been around the corner when the incident happened.
He later suggests those responsible had driven off in a silver hatchback.
The footage then shows another friend, Adam Chowdhary, also 17, and from another wealthy family, come into view and another officer says that he is ‘trying to leave’.
Chowdhary is told to take a seat in a patrol car. Chowdhary, who was present during the fatal incident, was cleared of charges of perverting the course of justice and conspiracy to rob, and given a four-month detention order for possession of a knife.
When he is asked ‘who’s done this?’ the youth replies: ‘I don’t know, I was walking far, look, ask him, ask how far back I was.
‘That’s why I was shocked. Because I was so far back he lifts up I see his belt. I was like, whoa, what’s that?
‘Or I see something, I see his pants or something and I’m like, whoa what’s that?’
Molnar, asked ‘who would have done this?’, is captured moments later telling an officer: ‘I don’t know.’
When he is urged to ‘just be honest mate’, he answers: ‘A lot of people that come from different areas, from Stretford and stuff like that, to Hale to try and rob people from their stuff.
‘That’s what happens most of the time and, erm, the other week someone’s tried to take my stuff.’
Asked who had done this he blames ‘a group of black guys’.
Yousef was just 17 when he was fatally stabbed through the heart by Molnar, a former public schoolboy from a wealthy Hale family, during the confrontation on March 2, 2019.
A jury acquitted Molnar, now 20, of murder and manslaughter later that year, although he 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.
Molnar said he acted in self-defence, alleging Yousef pushed and punched him and called him ‘p*ssy’.
Yousef’s family say this was ‘totally out of character’ and told last year’s inquest Yousef acted as a peacemaker during a row between Molnar and Chowdhary.
The court heard that, on the day of his death, the three teenagers had convened in an underground car park under a supermarket shortly after attending the Square shopping centre in Manchester.
Chowdhary told the inquest Josh Molnar had been ‘impressed’ when they showed him the flick knives he and Yousef were alleged to have had in the car park, which they had jointly ordered in a break from lessons at school two weeks earlier.
The group then attended a country lane near Manchester Airport together after Chowdhary had arranged a small cannabis deal.
However, Molnar was beaten by two associates of the alleged dealer and his £2,000 Starling bike was thrown over a hedge.
Greater Manchester Police told the inquest it believes this ‘pre-cursor event’ was, in fact, a planned revenge attack and not a drug deal.
It followed a review of police investigations into incidents in Wilmslow that Molnar was involved in two weeks earlier.
Molnar denied any involvement and was never prosecuted, but the boy’s cousins attacked him in revenge, the inquest heard.
Senior Coroner Alison Mutch has written to Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi to highlight concerns over the UK’s deadly knife culture
He said he blamed Chowdhary, who had cycled away from the confrontation, and later the same day took his £300 jacket as ‘compensation’ until the bike was returned.
Molnar also accused of Yousef of having ‘just watched’ as the assault took place.
The last time Yousef was captured alive was at 6.34pm and 46 seconds, when the three reconvened later that evening.
The inquest heard the fatal stabbing occurred, unseen by any camera, at about 6.36pm.
As Yousef lay dying, the panicking defendants hid the knives in bushes and down a drain, dialled 999 and desperately tried to staunch the blood pouring out of Yousef’s chest wound.
Chowdhary, now 19, from Hale Barns, who described Yousef as his ‘best friend’ at MGS, 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 during a break from lessons at MGS.
Following an inquest in November, Senior South Manchester Coroner Ms Mutch recorded a narrative conclusion, saying: ‘Yousef died from complications of a stab wound to chest.
‘The precise circumstances in which he was wounded cannot, on balance of probabilities, be ascertained.’
However, in a report published on Friday, she has written to Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi to highlight concerns over the UK’s deadly knife culture.
She says: ‘The inquest heard evidence that there was a culture amongst some teenagers who saw the possession of knives as being impressive and did not understand the risks that are inherent in the carrying of knives.
‘The knife that Yousef was stabbed with was a that had been purchased with ease during break time at school.
‘It was clear from the evidence that schools and education play a vital role in attitudes to carrying knives by teenagers.’
The inquest had earlier heard that Yousef was from humble beginnings, from a single-parent Anglo-Lebanese family, but had a brilliant mind.
Police at the scene in Gorse Bank Road, Hale Barns, Cheshire, where Yousef was stabbed to death
Flowers, photographs and tributes pictured outside Manchester Grammar School following his death
Yousef’s body is carried out of a funeral ceremony at he Dar Al-Hadi Foundation in Ardwick
His mother ‘scrimped and saved’ to buy his £1,000 school uniform after he won a scholarship to the £13,000-a-year Manchester Grammar School.
Paying tribute to her brother, Yousef’s sister Jade Akoum said during the inquest: ‘He was a peacemaker. He was everything you would want in a brother or son.
‘Every day we miss him. It is a huge void we will never get back.’
His mother Debbie Makki, 55, died of Sepsis in May 2020. Before her death, she wrote a statement to the court: ‘I don’t think people realise how something like this affects your whole life.’
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