Yousef Makki was unlawfully killed after being stabbed in the heart by friend, second inquest finds
A 17-year-old boy who was stabbed to death by his friend in an upmarket village in Cheshire was unlawfully killed, a second inquest has found.
A coroner originally ruled out unlawful killing and accidental death as reasons for Yousef Makki’s death on 2 March 2019.
Ex-public schoolboy Joshua Molnar said he acted in self-defence when he stabbed Yousef in the heart with a flick knife in Hale Barns near Altrincham.
Molnar was cleared by a jury of murder and manslaughter after a trial at Manchester Crown Court.
He 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.
The Makki family’s campaign for a fresh inquest succeeded in January this year after the High Court quashed the result of the 2021 ruling.
The second inquest at Stockport Coroner’s Court heard of many “discrepancies” in how the stabbing happened.
Molnar told the jury at his trial that the two had had a row and that Yousef had pulled a flick knife out first so he took his out and his friend “came on” to his weapon, causing the fatal injury.
However, in a lengthy ruling, coroner Geraint Williams concluded that Yousef did not have a knife at the time of his death as claimed, and Molnar had not acted in self-defence and did not believe he needed to use a knife to defend himself.
Joshua Molnar arriving at court during his 2019 trial
Mr Williams said: “I find as a fact Yousef Makki did not use a knife to threaten or attack Joshua Molnar.
“I also find use of a knife unnecessary, disproportionate and unreasonable. I conclude he did not act in lawful self-defence.
“Therefore, I conclude that Mr Makki was unlawfully killed is fully made out by the evidence.”
Jade Akoum, Yousef’s sister, was hugged by her husband Mazen as the conclusion was delivered.
Their lawyer, Peter Weatherby KC, thanked the coroner, saying it had been “a very long journey” for the family.
While a jury in a criminal trial must be sure beyond reasonable doubt of guilt, at an inquest a coroner can make conclusions based on the lower standard of using a balance of probabilities.
Inquest rules mean coroners are not allowed to apportion blame to named individuals.
Molnar was earlier 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 has admitted “pretty disgusting” behaviour by lying after the stabbing to protect himself, but maintained he acted in self-defence.
Lisa Judge, representing Molnar, said he had admitted he panicked and lied to police, for which he had been jailed.
But she said any inconsistencies in his account of the stabbing four years ago were a result of trauma and “fracturing memories”.
Another youth, Adam Chowdhary, was with the pair at the time.
He said he did not see what happened because he was on his phone.
Yousef, from Burnage, Manchester, became friends with the pair, both from wealthy Cheshire families, after winning a scholarship to £12,000-a-year Manchester Grammar School.
All three were aged 17 at the time.
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A nine-year-old girl found dead in Weston-super-Mare has been named on the day police revealed a teenager had been charged with her murder.
Emergency services were called to Lime Close in the Somerset town at 6.09pm on Monday but Aria Thorpe was pronounced dead at the scene.
Police said a 15-year-old boy had been charged with her murder and that a preliminary post-mortem found she died from a single stab wound.
The teenage boy – who can’t be named due to his age – will appear at Bristol Magistrates’ Court later today.
A police cordon remains in place as forensics officers continue their work.
Flowers and tributes have been left at the scene. Pic: PA
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Superintendent Jen Appleford, from Avon and Somerset Police, said the community was in shock and Aria’s family were being supported by police.
“It is impossible to adequately describe how traumatic the past 36 hours have been for them and we’d like to reiterate in the strongest possible terms their request for privacy,” she said.
Supt Appleford said police were working with local schools and other agencies to make sure support is available.
Britain loves chocolate.
We’re estimated to consume 8.2kg each every year, a good chunk of it at Christmas, but the cost of that everyday luxury habit has been rising fast.
Whitakers have been making chocolate in Skipton in North Yorkshire for 135 years, but they have never experienced price pressures as extreme as those in the last five.
“We buy liquid chocolate and since 2023, the price of our chocolate has doubled,” explains William Whitaker, the real-life Willy Wonka and the fourth generation of the family to run the business.
William Whitaker, managing director of the company
“It could have been worse. If we hadn’t been contracted [with a supplier], it would have trebled.
“That represents a £5,000 per-tonne increase, and we use a thousand tonnes a year. And we only sell £12-£13m of product, so it’s a massive effect.”
Whitakers makes 10 million pieces of chocolate a week in a factory on the much-expanded site of the original bakery where the business began.
Automated production lines snake through the site moulding, cutting, cooling, coating and wrapping a relentless procession of fondants, cremes, crisps and pure chocolate products for customers, including own-brand retail, supermarkets, and the catering trade.
Steepest inflation in the business
All of them have faced price increases as Whitakers has grappled with some of the steepest inflation in the food business.
Cocoa prices have soared in the last two years, largely because of a succession of poor cocoa harvests in West Africa, where Ghana and the Ivory Coast produce around two-thirds of global supply.
A combination of drought and crop disease cut global output by around 14% last year, pushing consumer prices in the other direction, with chocolate inflation passing 17% in the UK in October.
Skimpflation and shrinkflation
Some major brands have responded by cutting the chocolate content of products – “skimpflation” – or charging more for less – “shrinkflation”.
Household-name brands including Penguin and Club have cut the cocoa and milk solid content so far they can no longer be classified as chocolate, and are marketed instead as “chocolate-flavour”.
Whitakers have stuck to their recipes and product sizes, choosing to pass price increases on to customers while adapting products to the new market conditions.
“Not only are major brands putting up prices over 20%, sometimes 40%, they’ve also reduced the size of their pieces and sometimes the ingredients,” says William Whitaker.
“We haven’t done any of that. We knew that long-term, the market will fall again, and that happier days will return.
“We’ve introduced new products where we’ve used chocolate as a coating rather than a solid chocolate because the centre, which is sugar-based, is cheaper than the chocolate.
“We’ve got a big product range of fondant creams, and others like gingers and Brazil nuts, where we’re using that chocolate as a coating.”
The costs are adding up
A deluge of price rises
Brazil nuts have enjoyed their own spike in price, more than doubling to £15,000 a tonne at one stage.
On top of commodity prices determined by markets beyond their control, Whitakers face the same inflationary pressures as other UK businesses.
“We’ve had the minimum wage increasing every year, we had the national insurance rise last year, and sort of hidden a little bit in this budget is a business rate increase.
“This is a small business, we turn over £12m, but our rates will go up nearly £100,000 next year before any other costs.
“If you add up all the cocoa and all the other cost increases in 2024 and 2025, it’s nearly £3m of cost increases we’ve had to bear. Some of that is returning to a little normality. It does test the relevance of what you do.”
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