Damning report reveals 'string of failures' during schoolboy Yousef Makki's murder investigation
| Published date | 05 December 2021 |
| Publication title | Manchester Evening News: Web Edition Articles (England) |
According to a source an internal GMP report has described how, a fortnight before the fatal 2019 stabbing, Molnar was stopped in Wilmslow with balaclava and linked to a knife -but police showed 'little appetite' to take action.
READ MORE: Shocking CCTV captures Yousef Makki's final moments before he's stabbed to death
Molnar was arrested on the night of the stabbing but the report also revealed police waited two days to search Molnar's home.
Last month, Senior South Manchester Coroner Alison Mutch said she could not safely conclude the death was either unlawful or accidental, instead recording a narrative verdict noting the precise circumstances could not be ascertained following a seven-day inquest at Stockport Coroners' Court.
Molnar, 17 at the time but now 20, from Hale, was found not guilty of murder and manslaughter following a trial at Manchester Crown Court in 2019.
The former public schoolboy was handed a 16-month detention and training order after he admitted possessing the knife which inflicted the fatal injury and perverting the course of justice by lying to police at the scene, blaming the attack on Makki on a group who had fled the scene.
His QC told the inquest which concluded on November 17 that the death was a 'terrible accident'.
The M.E.N can reveal that, according to a source, an internal Greater Manchester Police review of the case, following the 2019 acquittal of Molnar on murder and manslaughter charges, has pin-pointed a string of failures by the under-pressure GMP detectives when investigating the death.
The review was conducted by experienced senior investigator Martin Bottomley also criticised officers from Cheshire Police, who it said showed 'little appetite' to take action against Molnar when he was stopped and searched on 17 February and found to have a balaclava.
On that same night, seven other youths who were with Molnar were also stopped following a string of muggings in Wilmslow, a fortnight before Yousef's stabbing. There is no suggestion Molnar was involved in those muggings.
It remains an unanswered question, if Molnar had been dealt with differently by those officers on 17 February then the 'terrible accident' on March 2 might have been avoided.
Stop and search cops were 'focussed on doing the minimum of work'
Both the 2019 trial and last month's inquest heard Molnar was arrested and then de-arrested in Wilmslow on February 17, 2019, a fortnight before the fatal stabbing.
Molnar told both hearings he was aware he was being blamed for an attack in a sandwich shop by associates of the alleged victim who saw him in a police car.
At the inquest he denied being among a group of 15 masked people who burst into Subway and beat up a teenager called Mousa Choudhry.
Mr Bottomley, who gave evidence in place of the now retired senior investigating officer rather than the author of the internal review, told the inquest it was his 'firm view' that the violence that ensued on a country lane near Manchester Airport in the hours before the fatal stabbing was not a 'drug deal gone wrong' -as the prosecution in the 2019 had described it -but in fact a 'revenge...
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