Keir Starmer met with the familes of Nottingham knife attack victims Barnaby Webber, Grace O’Malley-Kumar and Ian Coates and promised a public inquiry into failings leading to the attack will start within weeks
A public inquiry into the sickening Nottingham attacks will begin within weeks, Keir Starmer promised grieving families.
The loved ones of 19-year-old students Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar and 65-year-old caretaker Ian Coates welcomed the news in an emotional meeting in Downing Street. The families have been fighting for answers over how Valdo Calocane, a paranoid schizophrenic, was able to go on a vicious rampage following a shocking string of errors by mental health teams.
He stabbed Barnaby, Grace and Ian before trying to kill three other people in a spate of attacks in June 2023. Calocane was sentenced to an indefinite hospital order in January 2024 after admitting manslaughter by diminished responsibility and attempted murder.
Mr Starmer told the families that a retired judge will be appointed shortly to lead the inquiry, which will scrutinise “a number of agencies” and have statutory powers to compel witnesses. “I gave you my word that we would push for a judge-led inquiry,” the PM told them.
“I want to make sure you are at the heart of this. I know, acutely, you didn’t feel that before, and we will do everything we can to make sure you are at the heart of this.”
Dr Sanjoy Kumar told the Mirror that he hoped the inquiry would help make the country safer, saying: “If there’s anything I do, I’ll do that in Grace’s name.” Dr Kumar, who got up from his chair and shook the PM’s hand with tears in his eyes at the news, said Mr Starmer spoke to him as a father.
He said: “I thanked him from one dad to another dad, and he replied back: ‘From one dad to another dad, it’s what I would want for my child.'” After a long fight for justice, Dr Kumar said was frustrated that the system doesn’t put victims at its heart. But he added: “I would fight this fight ten times over in Grace’s name.”
Emma Webber, mum of Barnaby, said: “It’s the first bit of positive news that we’ve been able to have for a very, very long time. “Today is a watershed moment… it will be a moment in time when those who failed so grossly will be held to account.”
She continued: “Don’t underestimate the cost and the toll it’s taken on everybody stood here today to get to this point. We shouldn’t be here, it’s shameful we’ve had to fight like we have against the agencies, the organisations and the institutions.”
Ian Coates’ son James said: “It’s not just about the families and victims, it’s about the future, it’s about protecting the public so they don’t have to walk in our shoes.”
It comes as an independent report commissioned by NHS England into Calocane’s care revealed a shocking series of errors by mental health teams that led to him being free to roam the streets. The report disclosed staff did not force Calocane to have long-lasting antipsychotic medication because he did not like needles.
Just a fortnight before the murders, Calocane’s psychiatrist had chillingly warned that his mental illness was so severe that he could “end up killing someone”. But despite the damning assessment, he was released back into the community.
Around 4am on June 13, 2023, Calocane stabbed medical student Grace and history student Barnaby to death in the Ilkeston Road area as the friends walked home from a night out. Caretaker Ian, who was just weeks away from retiring at Huntington Academy, was later killed two miles away in Mapperley Park.
Calocane then stole Ian’s van and drove into Nottingham city centre, where he careered into pedestrians at two separate locations. Two victims – Sharon Miller and Marcin Gawronski – suffered minor injuries, while another man, Wayne Birkett, 58, was critically hurt.