Coroner urged to rule Yousef Makki stabbing an unlawful killing

A coroner has been urged to rule the stabbing of a grammar school boy in an upmarket Cheshire village was an unlawful killing.

Ex-public schoolboy Joshua Molnar said he acted in self-defence and was cleared by a jury of the murder and manslaughter of his friend Yousef Makki, in Hale Barns, on March 2 2019.

At a second inquest into Yousef’s death, after the High Court quashed the result of the first, the hearing at Stockport Coroner’s Court heard Molnar admitted lying about what happened and of “discrepancies” in how he came to stab Yousef in the heart with a flick knife.

Molnar told the jury at his trial that the two had had a row and that Yousef had pulled a knife out first so he took his out and his friend “came on” to his weapon, causing the fatal injury.

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. Chowdhary had bought the flick knives online.

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.

Lawyers for Yousef’s family told the inquest, the only evidence he had brandished a knife came from Molnar.

And the coroner had questioned how “feasible” it was for Yousef, having been stabbed in the heart and bleeding heavily, to have then retracted the blade of the flick knife and put it in his pocket, before, according to Chowdhary, handing it to him to put down a grid.

On the fourth day of the second inquest, lawyers for Yousef’s family and Molnar and Chowdhary made final submissions to Coroner Geraint Williams.

Tom Coke-Smyth, representing Chowdhary, said the question of whether he did or did not see anything meant “absolutely nothing” to the question of whether Molnar’s self-defence was justified.

Lisa Judge, representing Molnar, said: “Any individual who came to this court to lie, would have maintained the lie.

“It is quite apparent that Joshua Molnar told many lies at the roadside. He accepted criminal culpability for those lies.

“The only inconsistencies are inconsistencies that arise out of trauma, fracturing memories or loss of memory.

“When lies are told, they are often told for many, many reasons other than culpability with regards to a specific act.”

Peter Weatherby KC, representing the Makki family, said: “We say Mr Molnar is lying about what happened because we say Yousef did not have a knife or did not brandish a knife.”

He said that Molnar had given differing accounts of what happened and asked the coroner to look at “precursor” evidence before the stabbing.

He added: “We urge you not to accept that we are asking you to speculate. This is a search for the truth on a balance of probabilities.”

Molnar was jailed for 16 months for carrying a knife in public and perverting the course of justice after initially lying to police at the scene about what had happened.

Chowdhary did not give evidence at Molnar’s murder trial. He was found not guilty of perverting the course of justice and given a four-month detention order after admitting having a knife in public.

A second inquest into Yousef’s death is being held with a new coroner after the High Court quashed the conclusions of the first in November 2021.

Yousef’s family had challenged the first coroner’s finding that there was not enough evidence relating to the “central issue” of whether the killing was unlawful.

Mr Williams is scheduled to give his conclusions on Wednesday next week.