Young lives brutally ended and families destroyed – but no chance of justice
Absolute desolation. Unfathomable grief. Crippling waves of pain. Promising young people robbed of their lives, loving families plunged into a bottomless chasm of anguish. And worst of all, no chance of justice.
Last June, two 19-year-old students, Grace O’malley-kumar and Barnaby Webber were stabbed to death, along with 65-year-old school caretaker Ian Coates, by Valdo Calocane in the streets of Nottingham.
Grace, a medical student, bravely intervened when Calocane, 32, repeatedly thrust a dagger into history student Barnaby. Although she could have run, instead Grace frantically tried to push away their attacker and he turned his rage on her.
Her terrible, terrifying screams were captured on a camera phone. Then silence. At 4am these two young people died on the street in the most unspeakable circumstances as Calocane calmly walked away.
Later, he stopped a van being driven by Ian Coates, stabbed him and left him for dead on the road. He then took the wheel and attempted to mow down three pedestrians.
Yesterday, with great courage and dignity, the parents of Grace and Barnaby attended the Nottingham
Crown Court where they believed paranoid schizophrenic Calocane would face the full force of the law for his terrible crimes.
But to their appalled consternation the judge ruled that, based on medical assessments conducted by three psychiatrists, recent mechanical engineering graduate Calocane was unfit to stand trial for murder. His pleas of manslaughter on the basis of diminished responsibility were accepted by the court.
Grace’s father, Dr Sanjoy Kumar, said: “The love of our life has been taken away from us. At the end of the day when you strip everything away, these children were walking home from a night out, they were attacked and murdered brutally.”
Addressing Calocane in the dock,
Sinead O’malley, Grace’s mother, said: “You are responsible for our ongoing pain and heartbreak. You are duplicitous and manipulative. You have shown no remorse.
“You understood right from wrong. You have violence in your soul. You are medically non-compliant and are never to be trusted. You remain a danger to society and the wider public.”
David Webber, Barnaby’s father, said the “waves” of pain he has experienced since his son’s death have been “crippling”. “Your despicable, murderous actions are not reparable in this or any other lifetime,” he said.
Barnaby’s mother, Emma, told the court: “Barney didn’t lose his life on the 13th of June. It was stolen from him in the most vicious, unprovoked, senseless and evil way imaginable. There must be appropriate justice served and punishment for the actions of this one monstrous individual.”
Was what happened in court “appropriate justice”? Certainly not as far as the parents, the siblings, the friends of those slain at random by Calocane were concerned.
They did nothing to provoke this
angry, aggressive man whom a previous flatmate had described as “a timebomb” waiting to explode. Others knew him to be dangerous if thwarted.
He broke into neighbouring flats and threatened violence, an altercation over a dirty shower prompted him to fracture another flatmate’s finger and on another occasion he followed a female student into her room and threatened her with such menace that she jumped out of a window to escape from him.
The university authorities were informed, police were involved and it is understood on more than one occasion he was detained under the Mental Health Act but released into the community.
What took place on the night of 13 June 2023 has all the elements of a horror movie. But it happened. On a quiet Nottingham street just 400 yards from their university accommodation, two beloved, precious young people were hacked to death with a dagger by a man who will not stand trial.
Justice is blind. But if it can hear, let it listen to the bereft families who will never come to terms with the burden of grief that has broken them.
‘Your despicable, murderous actions are not reparable in this or any other lifetime’ ‘Barney didn’t lose his life on the 13th of June. It was stolen from him in the most vicious way’