Valdo Calcocane 'got away with murder': Families of Nottingham victims react to damning review into killer's care

5 February 2025, 11:31 | Updated: 5 February 2025, 11:41

(left to right) Grace O'Malley-Kumar's brother James, with their parents Dr Sanjoy Kumar and Dr Sinead O'Malley, James Coates, the son of Ian Coates, and Emma Webber, the mother of Barnaby Webber react to the review into Valdo Calocane's care
(left to right) Grace O'Malley-Kumar's brother James, with their parents Dr Sanjoy Kumar and Dr Sinead O'Malley, James Coates, the son of Ian Coates, and Emma Webber, the mother of Barnaby Webber react to the review into Valdo Calocane's care. Picture: Alamy

By StephenRigley

The families of the Nottingham victims have said attacker Valdo Calocane "got away with murder" after an independent review found failings involved in his prior NHS care.

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Valdo Calocane was allowed to avoid taking long-lasting antipsychotic medication because he did not like needles, the review found. He also punched a police officer in the face and held his flatmates "hostage".

Valdo Calocane
Valdo Calocane. Picture: Nottinghamshire Police

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Speaking today at a press conference following the publication of the review, the family of one of the victims said doctors must be held responsible for their "failure" to treat triple killer Calocane appropriately.

Dr Sanjoy Kumar, the father of Grace O'Malley Kumar, said he would be writing to Health Secretary Wes Streeting to order the mental health trust in question to hold individual clinicians "responsible", adding: "We demand accountability."

His words follow those of the mother of Barnaby Webber, Emma Webber, who said that a report into Calocane's care is a "horror show" that showed mental health teams "missed opportunities because "they just didn't do their jobs properly".

Calocane, who had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, was sentenced to an indefinite hospital order after killing 19-year-old students Barnaby and Grace and caretaker Ian Coates, 65, before attempting to kill three other people, in a spate of attacks in Nottingham in June 2023.

Ian Coates, Barnaby Barnaby Webber and Grace O'Malley-Kumar died on 13 June 2023
Ian Coates, Barnaby Barnaby Webber and Grace O'Malley-Kumar died on 13 June 2023. Picture: Family handout

Speaking to reporters at a press conference in London on Wednesday, Dr Kumar said: "We've been failed at every intersection that Valdo Calocane had with any authority."

Demanding individual accountability for the failures shown in the report, he added: "This report published highlights the failures of the mental health trust, but it fails my wife and I, as clinicians working at the NHS, for the failure to treat Valdo Calocane appropriately.

"We will be asking the Secretary of State for Health to order the trust to hold individual doctors responsible as they know Valdo Calocane was an evil, violent man - a known risk to the public who did not take his medication."

The report said Calocane was not forced to have long-lasting anti-psychotic medication because he did not like needles.

The review said other patients cared for by Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust also committed "extremely serious" acts of violence - including stabbings - between 2019 and 2023.

Mrs Webber urged the Prime Minister not to renege on the promise of a public inquiry following the report's publication, saying: "It has to have teeth - there's no point in doing it otherwise."

Solicitor Neil Hudgell, acting on behalf of the families of the Nottingham attack victims, said they will meet the Government next week to discuss a statutory public inquiry.