A warrant to arrest a violent schizophrenic man before he killed three people in Nottingham was not executed by police for months before the attacks in what was described as a “serious, systemic, operational failure”, an inquiry has heard.
Valdo Calocane killed University of Nottingham students Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar, both 19, and caretaker Ian Coates, 65, and attempted to kill three more people in June 2023.
The warrant was issued in September 2022, 10 months before the killings, at Nottingham Magistrates’ Court after Calocane, who was accused of assaulting an emergency worker, did not attend the hearing.
A month before the fatal attacks, Calocane assaulted two colleagues at a factory in Kegworth, Leicestershire, but he was not arrested by Leicestershire Police at that time.
In his opening statement on behalf of the relatives of Mr Webber, Miss O’Malley-Kumar and Mr Coates, Tim Moloney KC said that any attempt by police to say arresting Calocane would not have made a difference would be “cowardly, highly offensive and insulting”.
He said: “That warrant was outstanding for 10 months, and Nottinghamshire Police did not execute it for 10 months. They just left him out on the streets.”
Mr Moloney continued: “Any attempt by the police to say arresting him would have made no difference to what was to happen on June 13 2023, sheltering behind some notion that he may not have been convicted and may not have received a custodial sentence, would be cowardly, highly offensive and insulting to the intelligence of the brave families.
“If the police do say that executing a warrant for his arrest would have made no difference, then the people of Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire have a lot to worry about in relation to who is keeping them safe.”
John Beggs KC, who is representing Nottinghamshire Police in the inquiry, said the force should have executed the warrant in a “timely manner”, adding: “They failed to do so at all.”
Mr Beggs added: “The temporary deputy chief constable (Rob) Griffin described that failure in his statement as, I quote, a serious, systemic, operational failure on the part of Nottinghamshire Police.
“He recognised the seriousness of what happened, or rather, what didn’t happen, and the distress it caused. He offered, and we repeat, an unreserved apology to the families of the deceased and the survivors.”
Mr Beggs asked the chairwoman of the inquiry to consider whether it is realistic that Calocane would have been prosecuted, convicted and imprisoned at that time while he was suffering with mental illness.
He added: “We respectfully suggest not but we understand why the bereaved and survivors are concerned by the failure to execute the warrant, and I repeat, we do not seek to defend that failure.”
Hugh Davies KC, representing two Leicestershire Police officers who attended the incident at the warehouse weeks before the fatal stabbings, said that an officer did not view records of Calocane’s previous encounters with police and if she had done so, “she would have been able to discover that VC (Valdo Calocane) had an outstanding warrant for his arrest”.
Mr Davies added: “The officers have accepted these shortcomings candidly.
“On behalf of Leicestershire Police, the chief constable apologises for these shortcomings.”
Mr Beggs said it is Nottinghamshire Police’s view that the force “did their reasonable best” to manage Calocane’s interactions with them before the killings, which include 10 to 11 incidents, “mostly responding to relatively low-level complaints of antisocial behaviour”.
He said that these incidents, including when he put a university flatmate into a headlock and caused a woman to jump out of her window, were not “in any way, unusual or remarkable for the police to have to deal with”.
The barrister said that paranoid schizophrenia is not a condition that police officers are trained to manage, adding: “Society’s answers to these public safety risks, posed by some paranoid schizophrenics, lie principally not with the police, but with the NHS and other clinical services, where judicious use of the mental health legislation may be required.”
Calocane was sentenced to an indefinite hospital order in January 2024 after admitting manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility and attempted murder – something which has been widely criticised by the victims’ families.
The chairwoman of the inquiry, who will hear evidence until June this year, will produce a report and provide recommendations in 2027.
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