A TEENAGER has been cleared of the murder of his grammar schoolboy friend with a flick knife.

The boy, aged 17, stabbed Yousef Makki, also 17, in the heart with a knife on a tree-lined street in the upmarket village of Hale Barns, Cheshire, popular with footballers and celebrities.

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

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.

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.

They would post videos on social media, making threats and posing with "shanks" or knives.

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.