The father of a university student who was fatally attacked by paranoid schizophrenic Valdo Calocane has told an inquiry that it is “disgusting” that the teenage stabbing victims were tested for drugs and alcohol but their killer was not.
Sanjoy Kumar, Grace O’Malley-Kumar’s father, said he could not understand why Calocane had not been tested for drugs while he was in custody after going on a violent rampage in Nottingham.
Ms O’Malley-Kumar, 19, was stabbed to death with her university friend Barnaby Webber in the early hours of June 13 2023 in Ilkeston Road after going on a night out.
Calocane then killed caretaker Ian Coates, 65, before running over three pedestrians with a stolen van.
Dr Kumar said he had to sign human tissue forms – forms he had never seen himself as a GP and a forensic medical examiner with the Metropolitan Police – otherwise their daughter’s body would not be released to them.
Dr Kumar told the central London inquiry: “You had to sign them, but what was not highlighted was that this is a point in time where you are also signing to say that samples could be taken. That was absolutely not pointed out.
“They took samples from our children to test for drugs and alcohol. I was really struck by that being really quite disgusting.
“Our children were tested, but the culprit wasn’t and from there on in, in terms of previous interactions and mental health, that was not made into a big thing at all, that was a flyaway comment.”
Dr Kumar “just couldn’t understand” that a hair sample was not taken while killer Valdo Calocane was in custody, adding “it may have proved nothing but it may have proved everything”.
The father said that from his experience he knew a hair sample to test for drugs did not require Calocane’s consent.
Retired Nottinghamshire Police Detective Superintendent Leigh Sanders previously apologised to bereaved families during the inquiry for a decision not to take a hair sample to test Calocane for possible drug use.
But the ex-officer said that a sample of hair “would not be able to provide analysis that showed drugs or alcohol in the system at a specific time or date”.
Dr Kumar said: “If you’re a detective of any description at all, and I think every detective watching this is going to agree, if you are here to detect crime, that means forensics is really important.
“And a basic part of that forensics is head hair.”
The inquiry continues.
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