Grace’s killer ‘must never be released, just like Ian Brady’ insist heartbroken families

The killer who took the life of Grace O’Malley-Kumar and two others in Nottingham must never be released, just like Ian Brady, his victims’ families have said.

Ms O’Malley-Kumar’s mother Sinéad O’Malley is Irish and studied at the RCSI in Dublin where her father worked.

Paranoid schizophrenic Valdo Calocane was given an indefinite hospital order in January after admitting the manslaughter of students Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar and bus driver Ian Coates.

Prosecutors accepted the 32-year-old’s not guilty pleas to murder charges at his sentencing hearing in January after psychiatrists gave evidence stating he was in the grip of psychosis at the time.

Victoria Prentis, the attorney general, referred the sentence to the Court of Appeal in February, with lawyers telling a hearing yesterday that it was “unduly lenient”.

Emma Webber, Barnaby’s mother, said they did not expect his sentence to be changed. She said what the families now wanted was to ensure Calocane became one of only a small number of people sentenced to hospital orders who were never released.

She said statistics showed 98pc of those subjected to hospital orders were freed within 20 years. One of the few not to be released was Ian Brady.

Serial killer Brady, who carried out the Moors Murders in the 1960s in Bradford, was diagnosed as a psychopath in 1985 and sent to Ashworth high-security hospital, where Calocane is now being held.

In 2013, he lost a legal challenge he launched to be moved back into the prison population. He died in hospital aged 79 in 2017.

Ms Webber added: “We have a lifetime, and our children have a lifetime of having to make him the next Ian Brady to ensure he doesn’t come out.”

Speaking outside the Royal Courts of Justice, Grace’s father, Dr Sanjoy Kumar, said: “We will fight all of the organisations that failed us, and what is becoming abundantly clear is the long list of people and organisations that failed us.”

If Calocane’s hospital treatment is successful, the Ministry of Justice or a mental health tribunal would approve any potential discharge.

The families of the victims attended yesterday’s hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice while Calocane appeared via video link from Ashworth Hospital.

Calocane remained emotionless throughout the hearing as details of his crimes were read out.

He fatally stabbed the 19-year-old university students as they walked home from a night out in the early hours of June 13 last year.

He then went on to stab Mr Coates, a 65-year-old school caretaker, 15 times and stole his van, which he used to knock down three pedestrians.

Deanna Heer KC said Calocane should be given a life sentence as part of a “hybrid” order, where he would be treated in hospital initially, before serving the remainder of his sentence in prison.

Calocane’s barrister, Peter Joyce KC, insisted his client’s mental health problems were not of his own making.

Calocane declined to give toxicology samples following his arrest and police were criticised by the victims’ families for not taking them.

Mr Joyce said Calocane had been suffering from paranoid schizophrenia since 2019 and was formally diagnosed in 2020.

“He didn’t cause it to happen to him by taking drugs. He didn’t cause it to happen to him by his behaviour.”

Mr Joyce said that psychiatrists who had assessed Calocane since he had been in hospital reported he was still hearing voices he believed were “controlling him”.

He added: “Those voices are gloating at the trouble they got him into here, that they got him into in Nottingham.

“They are pleased with the effect they had on him.”

He said that if Calocane was sentenced to a hybrid order, and went to prison, he would be a risk to the prisoners and also his treatment would not be managed as effectively as it would in hospital.