‘If police and NHS did their jobs properly my boy would be alive’

THE families of Valdo Calocane’s three victims have criticised the authorities over their missed opportunities to stop the killer. While the CPS was under fire for its decision to accept Calocane’s manslaughter plea, the police and mental health services were questioned over their failures to prevent the attack.

Police ‘should have done more’

Police failed to arrest Calocane for nine months when he was wanted on a warrant for the alleged assault of a police officer before the fatal attacks on June 13. Nottinghamshire Police had issued a warrant for his arrest in September 2022 after he failed to appear in court in connection with an assault on an officer who was taking him to hospital for mental health treatment.

But officers failed to track him down and make the arrest.

Asst Chief Constable Rob Griffin admitted the shortcomings of the force in not arresting Calocane sooner.

Mr Griffin said: “I have personally reviewed this matter and we should have done more to arrest him. However,

because of the circumstances prevailing, at the time of the alleged assault, in my opinion, it is highly unlikely that he would have received a custodial sentence.

“Of course, an arrest might have triggered a route back into mental health services, but as we have seen from his previous encounters with those services, it seems unlikely that he would have engaged in this process.”

His admission drew condemnation from the families of Calocane’s victims.

Directly addressing Mr Griffin, Mrs Webber said: “If you had done your jobs properly there’s a very good chance my beautiful boy would be alive today.”

She said it took “repeated questioning” of the police to find out the details of Calocane’s outstanding arrest warrant. She said her family have “grave concerns” surrounding parts of the investigation and asked why the police supposedly said Calocane was a “sofa surfer and had no true abode”.

“That’s not true. He did,” she said. “One that was registered in his name in Nottingham, and one that he had been in for about six months prior to his eviction on the June 11 last year.”

Ian Coates’s son James said: “The failures from the police, the CPS, the health service have resulted in the murder of my father and two innocent students.”

In a video released by Nottingham Police after Calocane’s sentencing, Mr Griffin said the attacks were “the most dreadful event that we have experienced in Nottinghamshire”.

NHS ‘must be held accountable’

Calocane was formally diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in July 2020, shortly after the first Covid lockdown. During a number of psychotic episodes he was in regular contact with mental health services, but stopped taking his prescribed treatment and frequently refused to engage with the professionals trying to help him.

Calocane, who had come to believe that he was being spied on by his housemates and by MI6 and that his family was under threat, was initially detained at Nottingham’s Highbury Hospital in May 2020, when he was treated with antipsychotic medication.

He was discharged on June 17 to the care of the Nottingham City Crisis Team, before being readmitted after trying to force his way into his flat and another address when he stopped taking his medication.

This became a regular pattern over the following months. In several cases he was violent, including the assault on a police officer transporting him to Highbury Hospital and physical confrontations with his flatmates.

In mid-january 2022, an assessment under the Mental Health Act concluded that he could continue to be treated in the community. But the court heard that Calocane failed again to engage with the Home Treatment Team and did not collect his medication.

Mr Coates questioned why NHS trusts had not taken stronger action to contain Calocane or made more effort to intervene.

Dr Kumar said his family had never questioned Calocane’s diagnosis but asked why there was no earlier intervention.

“The lack of toxicology, contemporaneous mental health assessment, and missed opportunities to divert his lethal path, will forever play on our minds.”