Triple killer has made me think again about the death penalty

He WAS described by the family of one of his victims as ‘the most evil person on the planet’. So it was a profound shock when triple killer Valdo Calocane was sentenced this week to be detained at a high- security hospital rather than given a life sentence for murder.

Last June Calocane stabbed three innocent people to death in Nottingham and attempted to kill three others in a frenzy of violence,

In the city’s crown court, Mr Justice Mark Turner described his slaughter of university students Barnaby Webber and Grace O’MalleyKumar and school caretaker Ian Coates as ‘sickening crimes’ that ‘shocked the nation’.

And yet Calocane was allowed to plead guilty to manslaughter rather than murder on grounds of diminished responsibility due to his mental health problems. No wonder the appalled families of the three victims say they’ve been cheated of justice.

This is a man who, according to the counsel for the prosecution, Karim Khalil KC, ‘knew what he was about to do’ before attacking Mr Webber and Ms O’Malley-Kumar as they walked home after a night out.

‘What he did was wait in the shadows until the two students walked past and he followed them,’ said Mr Khalil, adding that he ‘attacked them from behind when they were at their most vulnerable’. Before

▪ TAKE a deep breath ladies. An in-depth study by academics at University College London concludes that wild swimming can relieve symptoms of the menopause. Cold water stops hot flushes? Who’d have thought it!

stabbing Mr Coates, Calocane lured him from his vehicle.

These were not random heat-of-the moment killings. Calocane roamed the streets for hours with a bag of knives including a double- edged ‘fighting dagger’, hunting his victims. Why should he be allowed to serve out his life sentence in a ‘hospital’ which effectively absolves him of responsibility for his crimes?

America is currently convulsed by the debate on the death penalty following the execution yesterday of a murderer in Alabama. I find Calocane’s crime so heinous, his let-off so outrageous, that I feel we should have that debate again here in Britain. I don’t say this lightly, not least because I am a committed Christian who believes in the sanctity of life.

But 40 per cent of Britons are calling for the reinstatement of capital punishment and I’m inclined to believe we should bring it back for monsters like Calocane if they are convicted of murder. What right does any man have to live when he has so cruelly and, yes, calculatedly, destroyed the lives of so many?