UK

Nottingham killings: Man who stabbed Grace O’Malley-Kumar and two others sentenced to indefinite hospital order

Judge says Valdo Calocane (32) will be detained in high-security hospital ‘very probably for the rest of your life’ over 2023 stabbings

Grace O'Malley-Kumar was one of three people stabbed to death by Valdo Calocane (32) in Nottingham last year. Photograph: Nottinghamshire Police/PA WireNottinghamshire Police/PA Wire

Thu Jan 25 2024 - 13:09

A man with paranoid schizophrenia who killed three people and attacked three others in a spate of “atrocities” in Nottingham, England last year has been sentenced to an indefinite hospital order.

Judge Mr Justice Turner said Valdo Calocane (32) would “very probably” be detained in a high security hospital for the rest of his life after “deliberately and mercilessly” stabbing students Grace O’Malley-Kumar and Barnaby Webber (both 19) and school caretaker Ian Coates (65) in the early hours of June 13th last.

Ms O’Malley-Kumar was the daughter of Irish-born, London-based consultant anaesthetist Sinead O’Malley.

“You committed a series of atrocities in this city which ended the lives of three people,” the judge told Calocane. “Your sickening crimes both shocked the nation and wrecked the lives of your surviving victims and the families of them all.”

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The families of Barnaby Webber, Ian Coates and Grace O’Malley-Kumar spoke to the media following the indefinite hospital order sentencing of Valdo Calocane.

He said the “harrowing” details of the attacks have been “fully recounted and explored” in court over the past days and that Calocane had sentenced many relatives and friends of his victims to “a life of grief and pain”.

“There was never any doubt that it was you who had committed these appalling crimes,” the judge said. “It soon became clear however, that the central issue in this case would relate to whether at the time of committing these offences you were suffering from symptoms of severe mental disorder.”

The judge added that the psychiatric evidence did not detract from the “horror” and “disastrous” impact of the offences, but he said, in his view, Calocane’s abnormality of mind had “significantly contributed” to him perpetrating the string of attacks.

Despite being detained in a high security hospital since November, Mr Justice Turner said Calocane still “remains dangerous”.

Calocane had also admitted to three counts of attempted murder relating to pedestrians he targeted in Nottingham city centre on June 13th last year.

Dr Sanjoy Kumar, father of Grace O'Malley-Kumar, makes a statement alongside relatives of the victims, outside Nottingham Crown Court after Valdo Calocane, who stabbed three people to death in Nottingham city centre and attacked three others, was sentenced to a hospital order after admitting manslaughter by diminished responsibility and attempted murder. Photograph: Jacob King/PA Wire

After stabbing Mr Coates, who was driving to work, Calocane stole his van and drove it into pedestrians. Wayne Birkett, Marcin Gawronski and Sharon Miller sustained serious injuries but survived.

Police tracked down Calocane in the van minutes later and used a stun gun on him as he sat in the driver’s seat before arresting him.

It was revealed this week that a warrant for Calocane’s arrest was outstanding at the time of the attacks, after he failed to appear in court nine months earlier for an alleged assault of a police officer while he was being sectioned.

Speaking outside the court after the sentencing, Dr Sanjoy Kumar, the father of Grace O’Malley-Kumar, said the family had never questioned Calocane’s diagnosis, but the “missed opportunities” to divert his actions would “forever play on our minds”.

“We will look for answers regarding missed opportunities to intervene and prevent this horrendous crime,” he said.

Emma Webber, the mother of Barnaby Webber, said the assistant chief constable of Nottinghamshire police Rob Griffin had “blood on his hands” over the force’s failure to arrest Calocane in the months before the killings.

“We as a devastated family have been let down by multiple agency failings and ineffectiveness,” she said, adding that they had been “rushed, hastened and railroaded” into accepting Calocane’s manslaughter pleas.

Mr Griffin said he had “personally reviewed this matter” and concluded the force “should have done more” to arrest Calocane.

“In my opinion it is highly unlikely that he would have received a custodial sentence for the alleged assault,” he said. “Of course, an arrest may 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.”

James Coates, the son of Ian Coates, said Calocane had “made a mockery of the system”.

“This man is a killer. Murder was the only thing he cared about and he fulfilled this in horrific fashion. All we can do is hope in due course some sort of justice is served,” he said.

Janine McKinney, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said Calocane’s pleas to manslaughter were only accepted after very careful analysis of the evidence.

“We reached this conclusion because the expert medical evidence was overwhelming; namely that his actions were substantially impaired by psychosis resulting from paranoid schizophrenia.”

Offering mitigation on behalf of Calocane on Wednesday, defence barrister Peter Joyce KC had urged the judge not to consider a whole-life order.

“There are very few whole-life orders and they have all, without exception, been for offences of murder,” he said, adding that schizophrenia had “stalked down” a man of previously impeccable character and behaviour. “This man is not before you for murder, he is before you for manslaughter.” – Agencies

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