Nottingham triple killer care report a ‘horror show’, victim’s mother says

The mother of Nottingham attack victim Barnaby Webber has said a report into the care received by her son’s killer is a “horror show” and mental health teams missed opportunities because “they just didn’t do their jobs properly”. Emma Webber urged the Prime Minister not to renege on the promise of a public inquiry following the report’s publication, adding: “It has to have teeth – there’s no point in doing it otherwise.”.

Valdo Calocane, who had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, was sentenced to an indefinite hospital order after killing 19-year-old students Barnaby and Grace O’Malley-Kumar and 65-year-old caretaker Ian Coates before attempting to kill three other people, in a spate of attacks in Nottingham in June 2023. Mrs Webber told the PA news agency that failings identified in the independent mental health homicide report left the victims’ families feeling “horrified, heart-broken and even more determined … that the Government and the agencies react and listen properly”.

Speaking after the report’s release on Wednesday, she said: “It’s been additional trauma, horror, disbelief and fury – but all of that was anticipated and expected by all three families. “But when you see it, and when you read it, and you are made aware of how many in the NHS alone, as an agency, opportunities for people to stop all of this happening were missed. “They missed it because they just didn’t do their jobs properly.

“This report is a horror show, it uncovers failings on an epic level. “It leaves us feeling horrified, heartbroken, but even more determined now to make sure that it’s addressed – that the Government and the agencies react and listen properly.”. 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 told PA that since Sir Keir Starmer promised a statutory public inquiry if Labour took office last year, the families “keep getting pushbacks”. She said: “Since then, we have repeatedly and continuously given evidence of these ongoing failures and reports that we are being tortured with – and the detail of which is eye-watering to an objective person and heart-wrenching to us as parents who have had their son murdered.

“We keep getting pushbacks – ‘it’s being considered, terms of reference are being agreed’… the key word for us is it has to be statutory, because if not those who must give evidence wouldn’t be compelled to give evidence otherwise because it’s the detail and the truth that we need. “This has to be a statutory one, it has to have teeth – there’s no point in doing it otherwise.”.

The independent review highlighted how, in one assessment carried out by mental health workers, the risk to staff was “managed” by making arrangements for workers not to visit Calocane’s home alone – but a plan for the “hazards” if he came off his medication and disengaged with mental health services was not developed. Speaking about the dangers Calocane posed that were highlighted by the report, Mrs Webber said: “It is catastrophic to us as families – but I think, certainly for the people of Nottingham, did they know what they had on their doorstep?.

“May 2020 he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. “What we do know is that on the four occasions he was sectioned – which I guess isn’t unusual for someone that’s mentally unwell – each of those was for violence and escalating violence against others. “He was posing the risk to others, to the public and anyone he came into contact with – be it emergency workers, be it university students, be it co-workers.

“So, this is an individual that is super dangerous on an escalating level and on two of the discharges there’s no proper note by the multi-disciplinary team who should so comprehensively discuss and agree in allowing somebody back out into society. “Why were no proper notes taken? Why was it never discussed at board level?. “This is the detail that really needs to be in question. “The last time he was discharged was September 2022 and that was without any risk assessment whatsoever.

“He didn’t turn up to meetings, he didn’t answer his door and therefore the clinicians decided for non-compliance with treatment to release him back into society and to discharge him to primary care, which is his GP. “GP practices have thousands of patients – there wasn’t even a red warning, there wasn’t a letter attached to it. “I believe it might have been in the very same week, ironically, before he was discharged, the warrant was issued for his arrest for the violence and the assault on one of the previous … attempts from the mental health people to assist.”.