Leicestershire Police has referred itself to the watchdog amid a probe into whether the force failed to arrest the Nottingham triple killer Valdo Calocane for assault weeks before his knife rampage.
Paranoid schizophrenic Calocane, 32, was last week handed a hospital order after stabbing 19-year-old students Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar and school caretaker Ian Coates, 65, with a dagger and running over three other people in Nottingham.
After his sentencing at Nottingham Crown Court for the ‘merciless’ killings, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) said several incidents involving previous police contact with Calocane have been ‘brought to our attention which we were unaware of’.
It comes just hours after the heartbroken parents of tragic university student Barnaby Webber called for a public enquiry into why Calocane was able to carry out his frenzied attack in Nottingham city centre on June 13 last year.
The victims’ families had previously accused Nottinghamshire Police of having ‘blood on their hands’ for failing to stop Calocane – who they were seeking to arrest for attacking a police officer at the time he carried out the triple killings on June 13 last year.
Paranoid schizophrenic Calocane pleaded guilty to manslaughter by diminished responsibility following the attacks that left Grace, Barnaby, and school caretaker Ian Coates dead in the early hours of last June 13.
He also admitted attempting to murdering three pedestrians who were hit by a van on June 13. He was sentenced to a hospital order with restrictions.
It emerged during Calocane’s sentencing hearing last week that in early May 2023 – around five weeks before his frenzied attack – that he started working in a warehouse in Kegworth, Leicestershire, where he was accused of attacking two employees.
Leicestershire Police said no one was seriously hurt in the factory assault and Calocane had reportedly been escorted off site by security before police arrived.
The IOPC said it requested more information about the attack from Leicestershire Police after Calocane’s sentencing last Thursday.
The watchdog also asked Nottinghamshire Police to give more details about a warrant issued for Calocane’s arrest in 2022 after he failed to appear in court for allegedly attacking a police officer.
In a statement, the IOPC said: ‘Following the sentencing of Valdo Calocane several incidents involving previous police contact with him have been brought to our attention which we were unaware of.
‘As a result, we asked Nottinghamshire Police and Leicestershire Police to provide us with information promptly about those incidents to establish whether there are any matters that should be referred to us.
‘We have this afternoon received a referral from Leicestershire Police about its investigation into assaults Valdo Calocane was alleged to have committed on May 5 2023, which we are assessing to determine what further action may be required from us.
‘In relation to a warrant being issued for Mr Calocane’s arrest in 2022, Nottinghamshire Police provided us with information about that shortly after the tragic events of June 13 2023. We decided it did not meet our referral criteria because the contact had not been recent and no conduct issues were identified for any individual officer.
‘Nottinghamshire Police subsequently carried out an internal review of matters linked to the warrant and we have now also requested details of that learning exercise, in case there are any issues that would require our involvement.’
The knifeman – who said he was hearing voices urging him to kill and believed he was controlled by MI5 and sonic waves – will ‘very probably’ spend the rest of his life at high-security Ashworth Hospital for massacring the innocent trio.
But prosecutors decided not to charge Calocane with murder and instead accepted his guilty plea of manslaughter with diminished responsibility.
Two consultant psychiatrists submitted evidence to his sentencing hearing that Calocane ‘knew what he was doing’ and ‘was not insane’ – but it was ultimately decided he was a ‘paranoid schizophrenic’.
This followed the judge also being told three psychiatrists had assessed Valdo Calocane and jointly concluded that he was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia at the time of the offences.
Prosecutor Karim Khalil said the experts concluded the condition ‘resulted in an abnormality of mental function… and an inability to exercise full control.’
David and Emma Webber called for a public enquiry this morning into why Calocane was able to carry out his frenzied attack in Nottingham city centre on June 13 last year.
Speaking to Richard Madeley and Susanna Reid on Good Morning Britain, Mrs Webber said: ‘I will never accept anything other than Barnaby was murdered.
‘He was murdered by somebody that knew what he was doing, he knew that it was wrong and he did it anyway – and he’s admitted that. He’s actually said that.’
Speaking two days after an interview with the Mail, Mrs Webber said ‘where do you start with the failings?’, explaining how officers failed to arrest Calocane for an assault of his co-workers just weeks before.
Mrs Webber said she was ‘aghast’ at the the opening statements from the Crown Prosecution Service in court at Calocane’s trial and has asked for a meeting with Janine McKinney from the CPS.
Ms Webber said: ‘We sat in court and were aghast at the opening statements from the CPS barrister last week, it was worded in such a way that the acceptance of manslaughter was after consultation with the families, oh it wasn’t, anything but.
‘We saw the CPS for the very first time as I said in my statement on the Friday November 24, the weekend before the pre-trial hearing, they had actually asked if we’d have that meeting on the morning of the hearing.’
Mrs Webber suggested Calocane was not showing signs of ‘obvious psychosis’ on the day of the Nottingham attacks and could be seen changing his clothes and interacting with people beforehand.
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Iwan Stone
