Sister of 17-year-old who was fatally stabbed says sentences ‘do not send right message to society’

The family of a 17-year-old boy who was fatally stabbed have appealed to the attorney general to increase the “unduly lenient” sentences handed to two boys in connection with his death.

Yousef Makki, 17, died from a single stab wound to the heart following an argument with a friend, known as Boy A, in an upmarket part of Greater Manchester on 2 March.

Boy A, 17, admitted stabbing Makki but said he acted in self-defence and denied murder. He was found not guilty of both murder and manslaughter following a trial at Manchester crown court.

The teenager was sentenced to a 16-month detention training order after admitting perverting the course of justice and possession of a bladed article. He will spend half of that sentence in custody.

A second 17-year-old, Boy B, who was not charged with murder or manslaughter, was sentenced to a four-month detention training order after he pleaded guilty to carrying a knife in an incident earlier that day. He too will spend half of that sentence in custody, and the remaining half under the supervision of youth offending teams in the community.

Sentencing the boys in July, the judge, Mr Justice Simon Bryan, described knife crime as a “cancer on society” and condemned a “warped culture where possession of knives is deemed to be cool and aesthetically pleasing”.

Makki’s sister, Jade Akoum, said on Wednesday the sentences “do not send the right message to society” and that they must be raised. “Knife crime is at its highest at the moment and we need tougher sentencing,” she said.

The family has written to the attorney general, Geoffrey Cox QC, to ask him to refer the sentences for review to the court of appeal. In a seven-page letter to Cox, seen by the Guardian, Makki’s family said the judge “allowed far too much credit” for Boy A’s age, his previous good character and his personal mitigation, and that the sentence should have reflected that “the knife was produced and used with fatal effect”.

It said the sentences handed to both Boy A and Boy B were “unduly lenient” and added: “Public concern at the increase in knife crime must be reflected in the sentences imposed.”

Makki was from a single-parent, Anglo-Lebanese family in the Burnage area of south Manchester, and had won a scholarship to attend Manchester Grammar School. Just days before his death he had attended a talk on studying at Oxford or Cambridge universities.

The trial heard how Makki died after a row with his friends, Boy A and Boy B. Boy A told the jury he pulled out a flick-knife because Makki had produced a knife – a claim denied by the victim’s family – and Boy A said he then accidentally stabbed his friend in self-defence.

The judge said the background to the case was “depressingly all too familiar” and that carrying knives, mixed with drugs and drug-dealing, was a “recipe for disaster”. He said: “It must stop. There is nothing cool about knives.”

• This article was edited on 23 August 2019 to amend details relating to Boy B.