Joshua Molnar wept on the day he started to give evidence, telling jurors he was distraught at what he had done to his friend Yousef Makki.
Yet, on the second day of giving evidence, he filmed a disturbing video.
This selfie footage shows Molnar making gun gestures and stabbing motions with an imaginary knife.
It's understood it was filmed in the court building, and as it is illegal to take or publish images in the precincts of the court, the M.E.N. is prevented from showing it.
The video ended up being sent to the horrified Makki family.
And while Molnar claims it was intended only for his girlfriend and was an expression of ‘frustration’, Yousef’s grieving relatives couldn’t help but interpret it as a threat and a taunt.
The tune in the video includes the lyrics ‘two flicks in my hands, let’s see who bleeds; back dem blades, put a dag in them, like the Heath; we come with shanks, they breeze.”
Terms like flicks, blades, dag and shanks are all slang terms for knives.
Yousef’s sister Jade, 29, told the M.E.N: “Considering he had cried on the stand, it didn’t look like he was very remorseful at all.”
She described the video as ‘shocking’.
Jade saw it for the first time on the day Molnar was acquitted of murder and manslaughter, three weeks after it was filmed, after it was sent to her younger brother by one of the defendant's friends.
“I was just shocked. I thought how can somebody just do that?,” Yousef’s mother Debbie said.
It was reported to the trial judge and Greater Manchester Police launched an investigation. Officers have since confirmed that they have concluded no offence has been committed.
Molnar’ legal team has insisted the clip ‘does not reflect a lack of remorse’, but ‘reflected his frustration with the way the prosecution were misrepresenting videos that were played at court’.
On top of this Makki family have also had to contend with social media trolls.
Yousef's sister Jade, as she struggled to come to terms with the verdicts, was left upset and angry when messages from an account called ‘Yousef Makki was no victim’ were sent directly to her on Snapchat.
She has reported these to the police.
"They said he was no victim, he played around with knives and drugs and that his mother neglected him”, she said.
“They made comments about my kids as well. I felt really angry and upset because a life had been lost. None of the defendants received abuse like that," said Jade, a mother of three.
She went on: "And it's not true at all. It was the way they portrayed him in court. It wasn't the way we know Yousef."
