Doctor warned Valdo Calocane could kill three years before Nottingham attack
A doctor warned three years before the Nottingham attacks that Valdo Calocane could “end up killing someone”, medical records reportedly show.
Calocane killed Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar, both 19-year-old students, as they returned from a night out in June last year, before killing school caretaker Ian Coates.
He then stole a van and crashed into three other people, who were seriously injured.
Calocane was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in 2020. But his mother Celeste and brother Elias told the BBC’s Panorama programme they only received the 300-page medical summary containing the warning after his sentencing.
The medical report came in July 2020 when Calocane was in hospital, sectioned under the Mental Health Act after breaking into a neighbour’s flat.
The BBC reported that a psychiatrist wrote: “There seems to be no insight or remorse, and the danger is that this will happen again and perhaps Valdo will end up killing someone.”
The 32-year-old was sentenced to an indefinite period in a high-security medical facility after pleading guilty to manslaughter.
Calocane’s family said the first mistake came in 2020, when he was first admitted for mental health treatment after twice breaking into a neighbour’s flat.
He was not admitted to hospital at the time. Instead, he was prescribed medication for a psychotic episode and police released him from custody.
It took another break-in for Calocane to finally be taken to Highbury Hospital in Nottingham, where a psychiatrist warned that he could kill someone.
Two weeks after the warning, Calocane was discharged from hospital. He later admitted to his community mental health team that he had lied to doctors about no longer hearing voices because he was “tired” of being there.
He was sectioned for a third time in September 2021 after punching a police officer, and for a fourth time in January 2022 for assaulting his housemate in their student flat.
At around 5am on the morning of the killings, Calocane called Elias and told him to leave the country with the family, believing they were not safe because of his delusions that the Government was controlling him.
By that time, he had already stabbed the 19-year-old students as they walked home from a night out, in what prosecutors described as an “uncompromisingly brutal” attack.
Recalling the conversation, Elias said: “I asked him eventually: ‘Are you going to do something stupid?’ And he says: ‘It’s already done’. And then he hangs up.”
Calocane then went on to stab Mr Coates 15 times and stole his van, using it to knock down the three pedestrians.
Elias echoed calls from the victims’ families for a public inquiry, saying: “We need some strong recommendations, but we can’t just say we’ll just wait until it finishes how many years down the line and then do something about it then. Something needs to happen now.”
A Care Quality Commission review of the care of Calocane by Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust (NHFT) will be published on Tuesday.
Ifti Majid, the NHFT chief executive, told the BBC he was “committed to do everything within my power to prevent such a tragedy reoccurring”.
Calocane’s sentence was referred to the Court of Appeal in February, but three judges ruled the hospital order was not “not arguably unduly lenient”, stating the court could not ignore medical evidence related to his paranoid schizophrenia.
Speaking following the appeal ruling, Barnaby Webber’s mother Emma Webber said: “Today’s ruling comes as no surprise to the families of the Nottingham attack victims. It was inevitable and was not a review of anything other than the letter of the law as it stands.
“Despite the fact that the Attorney General herself feels that Valdo Calocane did not receive the appropriate sentence, the outcome proves how utterly flawed and under-resourced the criminal justice system in the UK is. It also illustrates the need for urgent reforms in the UK homicide law.
“The fact remains, despite the words of the judge, that almost 90 per cent of people serving hospital orders are out within 10 years and 98 per cent within 20 years. In effect, the families now face their own life sentence of ensuring the monster that is Valdo Calocane becomes the next Ian Brady or Fred West and is never released.”
The Panorama programme airing on Monday night has been criticised by the family of the victims, who said it was made without their consent.