Valdo Calocane was once described as a polite churchgoer, but he will now always be remembered as the Nottingham killer. The dangerous knifeman, 33, killed university students Barnaby Webber and Grace O'Malley-Kumar, both 19, and caretaker Ian Coates, 65 in a random attack one morning in June 2023. Calocane, a paranoid schizophrenic, is currently serving an indefinite hospital order after admitting manslaughter with diminished responsibility.

Today, an independent report commissioned by NHS England into his care revealed a shocking series of errors by mental health teams that led to Calocane being free to roam the streets and kill his three victims. The report disclosed staff did not force Calocane to have long-lasting antipsychotic medication because he did not like needles. It also details four hospital admissions between 2020 and 2022 and multiple contacts with community teams. During this time, Calocane displayed violent and disturbing behaviour, including frightening a neighbour so much she jumped out of a window, punching a police officer and holding his flatmates hostage.

Just a fortnight before his harrowing rampage, Calocane's psychiatrist had chillingly warned that his mental illness was so severe that he could "end up killing someone". But despite the damning assessment, he was released back into the community. Here, the Mirror takes a look at the dangerous spiral that led to him tragically murdering three people. Around 4am on June 13, 2023, Calocane stabbed medical student Grace and history student Barnaby to death in the Ilkeston Road area as the friends walked home from a night out. Caretaker Ian, who was just weeks away from retiring at Huntington Academy, was later killed two miles away in Mapperley Park.

Calocane then stole Ian's van and drove into Nottingham city centre, where he careered into pedestrians at two separate locations. Two victims - Sharon Miller and Marcin Gawronski - suffered minor injuries, while another man, Wayne Birkett, 58, was critically hurt. The frenzy finally came to an end in Hyson Green when the van was stopped, and an arrest was made. In January 2024, Calocane was sentenced to an indefinite high-security hospital order. Mr Justice Turner said in court: "You committed a series of atrocities in this city which ended the lives of three people in this city. Your sickening crimes both shocked the nation and wrecked the lives of your surviving victims and the families of them all.".

Calocane had been a 'bright' student and just like two of his victims, had been studying at the university. But somewhere along the line, he descended into a murderer. Just a few years before the attacks, he was billed as 'The Psycho' by his university housemates, but before his 'Jekyll and Hyde' tendencies started to show, his life was a far cry away from his troubles. The killer had an "idyllic" upbringing in the Welsh market town of Haverfordwest, which he moved to with his parents from the West African country of Guinea-Bissau, where he was born in September 1991. Neighbours described him as a 'polite churchgoer' from a good family who would always say hello to them.

He attended the Calvary Church along with his carer dad Amissao, 56, nurse mum Celeste, 44, and two younger siblings. Neighbour Marlene Raymond, 55, said: "I can picture the eldest boy now in his school uniform, he was very smart and handsome. He was very bright, all three children are - they are a nice family and have been lovely neighbours for years. I haven't seen the oldest boy for some time - since he went away to college or uni. They are very clever, all of them are polite and intelligent children.".

When Calocane started at the University of Nottingham in 2019, he was nearly a decade older than other freshers. Fellow classmates on the mechanical engineering course described him as "quiet and aloof". But it was behind closed doors, in a string of shared student digs in Nottingham, where he showed his true colours. Flatmates recalled how Calocane "hated noise" and would snap if he was disturbed while studying or sleeping. "He would lose it if we came back late from a night out and woke him up," one former student told the Mirror. "It was a bad mix. He was a guy in his late 20s, we were party animals barely out of our teens. Valdo was so volatile.

"He came storming out of his room in a rage without warning. He didn't attack any of us, he would just erupt shouting and get right in our faces. A few times he literally came into my room and was ranting and raving because I had my music on. It freaked me out, so I got a sliding lock put on the inside of my door to stop him doing it again.". A previously unearthed video showed Calocane putting a flatmate in a headlock during a furious row. He moved between various student accommodations during his time at the University of Nottingham. One block of flats was a stone's throw from where his victims, Grace and Barnaby, were stabbed to death.