Get back to basics: Home Secretary tells bobbies to ‘get back on the streets’ after families of Nottingham stab victims slammed police failures to stop triple-killer Valdo Calocane in weeks before rampage

The Home Secretary has told police officers to get ‘back on the streets’ and ‘back to basics’, after the families of the Nottingham stab victims slammed police failures to stop triple-killer Valdo Calocane in the weeks before his rampage. 

James Cleverly expects to see officers out on the streets, responding to reports, pursuing lines of inquiry and executing warrants, following the criticism. 

This comes after Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) launched an investigation following a referral from the force on Monday relating to inquiries into assaults Calocane is alleged to have committed in May last year. 

‘We have to make sure we are pursuing a policing system where those basics are delivered. Technology is important. An increase in Police numbers is important but ultimately we’ve got to do the basics,’ he told the Sun on Sunday.

He continued: ‘We’ve got to execute warrants. We’ve got to pursue lines of inquiry. We’ve got to make sure officers are on the street, dealing with shoplifting, dealing with burglaries.’

Calocane was sentenced to an indefinite hospital order for stabbing to death university students Barnaby Webber, 19, and Grace O’Malley-Kumar, 19, and school caretaker Ian Coates, 65, in the early hours of June 13 last year. 

However it emerged at Calocane’s sentencing hearing that in early May last year – around five weeks before the killings – he was accused of attacking two employees at a warehouse in Kegworth, Leicestershire. 

Grace’s father said his family would ‘forever’ troubled by the ‘missed opportunities’ to potentially prevent the attack.

Barnaby’s mother Emma Webber said outside court on the day of his sentencing: ‘True justice has not been served today. ‘We as a devastated family have been let down by multiple agency failings and ineffectiveness.

‘It took repeated questioning from us to finally receive an answer late last Friday afternoon to the question of his outstanding warrant, issued September 2022, for a vicious attack on a police officer. Such a violent assault that he was Tasered.

‘To the Assistant Chief Constable Rob Griffin, who finally released this information publicly yesterday, I say this: you have blood on your hands.

‘If you had just done your jobs properly, there’s a very good chance my beautiful boy would be alive today.’

Barnaby and Grace are seen walking home from a nightclub at 4am on June 13, moments before the killer leapt out of a darkened alley and brutally attacked them. A 999 caller who came across their bodies is heard describing the unimaginable scene to police, saying: ‘Oh no…it was awful’.

Calocane is then filmed casually walking away and trying to break into a homeless hostel – only to be punched in the face by a resident. He is next seen ramming into three pedestrians in the white van. Bodycam footage shows his dramatic arrest by Taser-wielding police just minutes later.

Since his sentencing the Attorney General has also ordered an independent review of the Crown Prosecution Service’s decision to accept paranoid schizophrenic Calocane’s guilty pleas to manslaughter on the basis of diminished responsibility, and whether it sufficiently consulted with his victims’ families.