The families of the victims of the 2023 Nottingham attacks have said that “every single agency failed… without exception” and accused government bodies of closing ranks and engaging in a “cover-up” after their relatives were murdered, as they demand an immediate meeting with the Prime Minister and top government figures to discuss “changing the systems that failed”.
The 14-week public inquiry into the murders of 19-year-old Grace O’Malley-Kumar, 19-year-old Barnaby Webber, and 65-year-old Ian Coates by 31-year-old Guinea-Bissau-born West African migrant Valdo Calocane has concluded its hearing of evidence. While the inquiry will likely make its report early next year, the group of families of the victims said the government’s cover-up of its failures must end immediately, and change should begin now, not be kicked into the long grass for months while the report is made.
Emma Webber, the mother of Barnaby, who, along with Grace, was stabbed to death in Nottingham on June 13th 2023, was among the group of victims who spoke out on Monday to condemn the government. Weber alleged that every single government agency that was involved with Calocane before he killed three and attempted to kill three more had failed, including the police, the National Health Service, its doctors, psychiatrists, other government “agencies”, and Nottingham City Council, reports The Times.
She said:
[Valdo Calocane, the] monster was left at large in the shadows to stalk his prey… Every single agency failed. Every single one. Without exception.
Mental health services failed to treat and manage. Police repeatedly failed to act. Agencies didn’t talk. Individuals chose to look the other way. Warnings were ignored. People chose not to care or be curious. And the fear of stigma and bias was placed above safety and duty. And when it went wrong, too many closed ranks. Instead of owning their mistakes.
There is cover-up over candour. This was a catastrophic collapse of responsibility.
This was not a one-off, Webber warned, stating there are “many Valdo Calocanes” out there waiting to strike if the government doesn’t get a grip on dangerous lunatics. She said killer Calocane had “got away with murder” because he’d been allowed to plead guilty to manslaughter and said:
This wasn’t bad luck. It was a catastrophic collapse of responsibility. An undoubted miscarriage of justice that must now be addressed… Evidence of his insight, his planning, and his culpability was overlooked by a weak prosecution, and poor quality of expert witnesses… A seriously, mentally unwell man, yes, but one who knew entirely what he was doing.
The mother of Grace, Doctor Sinéad O’Malley, also spoke out on Monday, reflecting upon the specific failures of the health service and the closing of ranks to protect institutions after Calocane had gone on a killing spree. She said if the doctors involved aren’t referred to the General Medical Council through official channels, the survivors would do it themselves. She said:
The fact that the hospital didn’t even want to share the names of the psychiatrists with us in the first instance, was not allowing us to have that right, which I think is outrageous. So these are parts of the cover-up. Professional protectionism is rife among the medical profession. So they didn’t want to share the names of these doctors with us. The only reason we got the names of the doctors is because of the public inquiry.
After Calocane stabbed Grace and Barnaby to death, he stabbed Ian Coates to death and stole his van, later using that van to attempt to run down other members of the public. Ian’s son, James Coates, also spoke of the failure of government and the disillusionment the victims’ families now feel after seeing the workings of the state up close. He said:
Unfortunately, we were delusional in our belief that justice would be served… For two and a half years, we’ve watched organisations close ranks, mark their own homework, and the inquiry must be the true reckoning.
Demanding change now, rather than wait another year for the — non-binding — report from the inquiry to be published in 2027, the families urged the government to meet with them. Webber said the meeting should take place within a month and should include the most senior government ministers with responsibilities touching the areas of the state that failed over the deaths of their family members, naming “the Prime Minister, the Attorney General, the Home Secretary, the Health Secretary, and the Justice Minister”. She said:
The findings of his inquiry will not be made until spring next year. However, that does not prevent action from being taken now. This isn’t about vengeance, it’s about doing the right thing, righting this grievous wrong and changing the systems that failed. The excuses stop here, and accountability starts today.
Valdo Calocane pled guilty to three counts of manslaughter in November 2023 for the attacks in June of that year. In the years before the attacks, he was frequently in contact with various arms of the state, but rather than receiving the help he needed, or at least being removed from society to a place where he could pose no threat to the public, he was passed between government agencies, who each shrugged off their responsibilities in turn.
There were several opportunities for him to be arrested or jailed before he killed, but these were never taken. In 2020, a woman broke her spine jumping from a high window as she fled in terror from Calocane, who had broken into her home. She believed he could have killed her if she hadn’t escaped. That attack was in the same Radford neighbourhood of Nottingham where the 2023 killings would later take place, and just yards from where Calocane would be tasered and arrested after the stabbings.
The victim revealed that after she was discharged from hospital for surgery to her spine, she was told by police that they would not prosecute Calocane for the incident because of his “mental health”.
On another occasion in 2021, Calocane assaulted a police officer. He was summoned to court for that assault a year later, but did not show. A warrant for his arrest was issued because of this failure to show, but it was never executed, and had been active nine months at the time of the 2023 killings. Police admitted their failure to arrest Calocane when they had a warrant to do so was a “serious and systemic and operational failure”.