The Court of Appeal has refused to change the sentence of Valdo Calocane, who killed three people in Nottingham last summer.
The 32-year-old was given an indefinite hospital order after admitting the manslaughter of Barnaby Webber, Grace O’Malley-Kumar and Ian Coates by reason of diminished responsibility, and the attempted murder of three others last June.
The Attorney General referred the sentence to the Court of Appeal in February, with lawyers arguing last week that Calocane – who suffers from paranoid schizophrenia – should be given a “hybrid” order where he would be treated before serving the remainder of the sentence in custody.
But three senior judges dismissed the bid on Tuesday, stating that while Calocane’s offences caused “unimaginable grief”, his sentence was not unduly lenient as his paranoid schizophrenia was “the sole identified cause of these crimes”.
Calocane, who attended via a video link from Ashworth high-security hospital near Liverpool, did not react as the judges gave their decision.
Giving their judgment, the Lady Chief Justice Baroness Carr said: “There was no error in the approach adopted by the judge.
“The sentences imposed were not arguably unduly lenient.”
Baroness Carr added: “It is impossible to read of the circumstances of this offending without the greatest possible sympathy for the victims of these terrible attacks, and their family and friends.
“The victim impact statements paint a graphic picture of the appalling effects of the offender’s conduct.
“Had the offender not suffered the mental condition that he did, the sentencing judge would doubtless have been considering a whole life term.
“But neither the judge nor this court can ignore the medical evidence as to the offender’s condition which led to these dreadful events or the threat to public safety which the offender continues to pose.”
Dr Sanjoy Kumar and Dr Sinead O’Malley, the parents of Ms O’Malley-Kumar, attended the Royal Courts of Justice on Tuesday while the relatives of Mr Webber and Mr Coates did not appear.
Calocane fatally stabbed 19-year-old university students Mr Webber and Ms O’Malley-Kumar as they walked home from a night out in the early hours of June 13 last year, before killing Mr Coates and stealing his van.
He then used the vehicle to knock down three pedestrians, Wayne Birkett, Marcin Gawronski and Sharon Miller, in Nottingham city centre before being arrested.
Prosecutors accepted his not guilty pleas to murder at his sentencing at Nottingham Crown Court in January after multiple medical experts concluded he had paranoid schizophrenia.
Sentencing judge Mr Justice Turner told Calocane that his “sickening crimes” meant he would be detained indefinitely in a high-security hospital “very probably for the rest of your life”.
He also ruled that Calocane should be subject to further restrictions if ever discharged from hospital, which would need to be approved by the Justice Secretary.
The families of the victims criticised the sentence, with Mr Webber’s mother, Emma, telling reporters outside court that “true justice has not been served today”.
While a later review found that prosecutors were right to accept Calocane’s pleas, Attorney General Victoria Prentis referred the sentence to the Court of Appeal, describing the killings as “horrific”.
At the hearing in London last Wednesday, Deanna Heer KC, representing the Attorney General’s Office, said that Calocane’s “extreme” crimes warranted “the imposition of a sentence with a penal element, an element of punishment”.
But Peter Joyce KC, for Calocane, said that none of the offences would have been committed “but for the psychosis” and that imposing a hybrid order would mean he would be “punished for being mentally ill”.
