Nottingham victim’s mother letter over ‘callous’ police chat
THE mother of one of the Nottingham attack victims has written an open letter to members of a police WhatsApp group in which a message was posted describing her son as being “properly butchered”.
Emma Webber, the mother of Barnaby Webber, 19, who with Grace O’Malley-Kumar, 19, and school caretaker Ian Coates, 65, was stabbed to death by Valdo Calocane last June, has written to the Nottinghamshire Police officer who she says posted graphic details of their injuries in the chat group.
Mrs Webber has shared an open letter to “the WhatsApp group of police officers who discussed the attack” as she had been denied the opportunity to speak to the group “privately and anonymously” after Chief Constable Kate Meynell, right, refused to pass on a private letter to its members.
Mrs Webber said the “callous, degrading and desensitised manner” of the comments has caused “more trauma than you can imagine”.
She added: “When you say ‘a couple of students have been properly butchered’ did you stop to think about the absolute terror that they felt in the moment when they were ambushed and repeatedly stabbed?”
Mrs Webber said she has the “utmost respect” for the emergency services, but added that anyone “who can witness the details of such a horror... and refer to lost children as butchered animals, should seriously consider their position”. The officer who wrote the message has received a management warning, Mrs Webber said she understood.
A force investigation found 11 staff viewed material about the case without any legitimate reason for doing so. Three faced disciplinary action but eight were instead handed “performance interventions”.