Valdo Calocane: Nottingham triple killer should have sentence changed to life imprisonment, court hears

The man who killed three people in a spate of attacks in Nottingham last year should have his sentence changed to one of life imprisonment, the Court of Appeal has heard. Valdo Calocane was given an indefinite hospital order after admitting the manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility of Barnaby Webber, Grace O’Malley-Kumar and Ian Coates, and the attempted murder of three others last June.

Prosecutors accepted the 32-year-old’s not guilty pleas to murder charges at his sentencing hearing in January after medical evidence showed he has paranoid schizophrenia. But Attorney General Victoria Prentis referred the sentence to the Court of Appeal in February, with lawyers telling a hearing on Wednesday that it was “unduly lenient”.

Deanna Heer KC, representing the Attorney General’s Office (AGO), said Calocane should instead be given a life sentence as part of a “hybrid” order, where he would be treated in hospital before serving the remainder of his sentence in prison.

She said: “The exceptional level of seriousness of the offences was such that the case required the imposition of a sentence with a penal element, an element of punishment. The harm caused and the harm risked to members of the public by his crimes was extreme.”

Several members of the victims’ families and friends attended the hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice while Calocane attended via video link from Ashworth high-security hospital near Liverpool.

He fatally stabbed 19-year-old university students Mr Webber and Ms O’Malley-Kumar 10 and 23 times respectively as they walked home from a night-out in the early hours of June 13 last year in what prosecutors described as an “uncompromisingly brutal” attack.

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 – Wayne Birkett, Marcin Gawronski and Sharon Miller – in Nottingham city centre before being arrested. He declined to give toxicology samples and gave no comment in a police interview.

Calocane’s sentencing hearing was told that multiple medical experts concluded he had paranoid schizophrenia, with the court hearing he had several interactions with mental health services in the months before the attacks. He was sentenced by Mr Justice Turner to an indefinite hospital order and made subject to further restrictions if he is ever discharged, which must be approved by the Justice Secretary.

The families of the victims have reiterated their calls for a public inquiry into the deaths after the Court of Appeal heard a bid to change his sentence. The relatives of Barnaby Webber, Grace O’Malley-Kumar and Ian Coates said “failure upon failure upon failure” contributed to the killings in Nottingham on June 13 last year.

They spoke after three judges heard a bid from the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) to change Calocane’s sentence, arguing that the indefinite hospital order he was given in January was “unduly lenient”.

Lawyers told the hearing that the 32-year-old, who has paranoid schizophrenia, should be given a life sentence as part of a “hybrid” order, meaning he would be treated in hospital before serving the remainder of his sentence in prison.

The Lady Chief Justice Baroness Carr said a decision would be given “within seven days or so” but recognised the “acute anxiety and distress involved in this very, very tragic case”.

Police ‘failed us’

Speaking outside the Royal Courts of Justice following the hearing, Dr Sanjoy Kumar, father of Ms O’Malley-Kumar, said: “Valdo Calocane murdered our children and Ian Coates, and it’s very, very hard for all of us in this process when what we should be doing is grieving for our children, but we are here instead fighting for them.

“But we will fight. 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. We have two police forces, Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire, that have failed us, we have got a mental health trust that failed us, we have got an NHS trust that failed us, we have got a county council that failed us. How many more people do we need to add to the list of failures?

“And that is why what we are saying is that to join all of these investigations together, we would robustly ask for a public inquiry for the benefit of every family in England who send their children away to university. They should be safe and sound. They should not have the fate that we have had to encounter and that is why we still call for a public inquiry to join up everything when we have found failure upon failure upon failure.”