Yousef Makki: Father of stab victim cries out in court ‘where’s the justice for my son’ as boy, 17, cleared of murder

Yousef Makki, 17
PA
Olivia Tobin29 August 2019
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The father of a 17-year-old schoolboy stabbed to death today shouted “where’s the justice for my son” as a teenager was cleared of his murder.

The defendant, who cannot be named because of his age, was cleared of murdering friend Yousef Makki in Cheshire.

The boy stabbed Yousef in the heart with a knife on a tree-lined street in the upmarket village of Hale Barns, popular with footballers and celebrities.

The defendant, boy A, and another boy, 17, boy B, both from wealthy Cheshire families, were cleared of all charges following a four-week trial at Manchester Crown Court.

As the verdict was read aloud in court on Friday, Yousef’s father Ghaleb Makki exploded in fury and the judge, Mr Justice Bryan cleared the courtroom.

The grieving father shouted: “F*** you! Where’s the justice for my son? Where’s the justice?”

Yousef Makki died in March
PA

Boy A puffed out his cheeks and closed his eyes as he was cleared by the jury forewoman and was then hugged by his tearful family in the public gallery.

Yousef, from a single-parent Anglo-Lebanese family from Burnage, south Manchester, had won a scholarship to a prestigious £12,000-a-year Manchester Grammar School.

Neither of the defendants can be named as they are aged under 18.

The jury heard the stabbing was an "accident waiting to happen" as all three indulged in "idiotic fantasies" playing middle class gangsters.

Despite the privileged backgrounds of both defendants, they led "double lives".

Calling each other "Bro" and "Fam" and the police "Feds", the defendants and Yousef smoked cannabis, road around on bikes, "chilling" and listened to rap or drill music.

Flowers and tributes are placed in memory of 17-year-old stabbing victim Yousef Ghaleb Makki
Getty Images

Boy A denied murder on March 2, claiming he acted in self-defence.

He admitted perverting the course of justice by lying to police and possession of a flick knife.

Boy B, was cleared of perverting the course of justice by allegedly lying to police about what he had seen but also admitted possession of a flick knife.

Both were also cleared of conspiracy to commit robbery in the lead up to Yousef's death.

Both defendants still face sentencing for possession of the flick knives, purchased by boy B from an app called Wish, and boy A also faces sentence for perverting the course of justice.

The court heard the background to the fatal stabbing on Gorse Bank Road, Hale Barns, was that hours earlier, Boy B arranged a £45 cannabis deal and the teenagers planned to rob the drug dealer, a "soft target". This was disputed by the defence and not accepted by the jury.

Boy A broke down in tears telling the jury: "I have got more annoyed. I have taken it out straight away, I don't really know what I did, kind of lifted my arm up.

"I didn't realise anything had happened at first."

As the victim 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.

A local man passing by, a heart surgeon, performed emergency surgery in the back of an ambulance but Yousef suffered catastrophic blood loss.

Additional reporting by PA.

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