25 January 2024 , 13:03
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The family of one of the victims of the "monster" Nottingham knifeman has accused the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) of misleading them, and said a police boss has "blood on his hands".
Attacker Valdo Calocane has paranoid schizophrenia, and killed three people and attacked three others in a spate of "atrocities" in the city. He has today been sentenced to an indefinite hospital order.
Judge Mr Justice Turner said the 32-year-old would "very probably" be detained in a high-security hospital for the rest of his life after "deliberately and mercilessly" stabbing students Barnaby Webber and Grace O'Malley-Kumar, both 19, and school caretaker Ian Coates, 65, in the early hours of June 13 last year.
Emma Webber, mother of Barnaby, said outside court that “true justice has not been served today”, adding the families of Calocane’s victims had been “let down” by the CPS, claiming they lied about consulting them before bringing charges.
"We trusted in our system - foolishly, as it turns out," she says, adding she has been "rushed and railroaded". "Our darling son, his dear friend Grace and a wonderful grandfather Ian have been stolen from us." The families describe Calocane as a "monster".
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Click here to follow the Mirror's live blog on the sentencing
Emma Webber, mother of Barnaby Webber outside Nottingham Crown Court (PA)Referring to an arrest order issued but not carried out nine months before the deaths, Mrs Webber said the assistant chief constable of Nottinghamshire Police has "blood on his hands". In a message directed at Rob Griffin, she said: "If you had just done your job properly, there's a very good chance my beautiful boy would be alive today."
She says there is "much more to say" and "serious questions" remain. "But for today, our darling son, his dear friend Grace, and a wonderfully kind grandfather, Ian, have been stolen from us forever and let down by the very system that should have been protecting them," she said.
Mrs Webber said: “We as a devastated family have been let down by multiple agency failings and ineffectiveness. The CPS did not consult us as has been reported – instead we have been rushed, hastened and railroaded.”
Mrs Webber appears to hold back tears outside court (Ian Vogler / Daily Mirror)She said the first meeting with them was on November 24. She said: “We were presented with a fait accompli that the decision had been made to accept manslaughter charges. At no point during the previous five-and-a-half months were we given any indication that this could conclude in anything other than murder.
“We trusted in our system, foolishly as it turns out. We do not dispute that the murderer is mentally unwell and has been for a number of years. However the pre-mediated planning, the collection of lethal weapons, hiding in the shadows and brutality of the attacks are that of an individual who knew exactly what he was doing. He knew entirely that it was wrong but he did it anyway.”
Mr Griffin said in a statement on Wednesday that the force "should have done more" to arrest Calocane before the fatal attacks of June 13. In August 2022, Calocane was reported for summons after assaulting a police officer and was due to attend court in September for that assault, but failed to appear and a warrant for his arrest was issued.
Valdo Calocane (PA)"The defendant was never arrested for that warrant which was still outstanding at the point of his arrest in June 2023," Mr Griffin said. "I have personally reviewed this matter and we should have done more to arrest him."
Sentencing, Mr Justice Turner told the killer: "You committed a series of atrocities in this city which ended the lives of three people. Your sickening crimes both shocked the nation and wrecked the lives of your surviving victims and the families of them all."
He said the "harrowing" details of the attacks have been "fully recounted and explored" in court over the past days and Calocane sentenced many relatives and friends to "a life of grief and pain".
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The judge told the triple killer: "There was never any doubt that it was you who had committed these appalling crimes.
"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 high-security Ashworth Hospital since November, Mr Justice Turner said he still "remains dangerous".
During the three-day hearing, the court heard how Calocane, a mechanical engineering graduate from the University of Nottingham, hid in the shadows in Ilkeston Road at around 4am on June 13 armed with a dagger before beginning his attack on Barnaby and Grace as they walked back to their student accommodation after an end-of-term night out.
Barnaby Webber was one of three people killed (PA)Witness evidence read to the court described "an awful, blood curdling scream" as Calocane, dressed all in black, inflicted at least 10 stab wounds on Barnaby and then 23 separate dagger wounds on Grace, who was attacked as she tried to protect her friend from the blows.
Commenting after the case, Janine McKinney, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said: "Valdo Calocane's actions that morning sent shockwaves through our entire community.
"He left three bereaved families devastated by grief and others with life-changing physical and emotional injuries. These were savage, ferocious attacks against entirely innocent people who had no way of defending themselves. His 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."