Mental health ‘system is broken’, says mother of Nottingham triple-killer

The mother of the man who killed three people in an attack in Nottingham in 2023 has told an inquiry that the mental health “system is broken” and until there is a crisis “no one listens to you”. Valdo Calocane, who has paranoid schizophrenia, was sentenced to a suspended hospital order in January 2024 after killing students Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar, both 19, and Ian Coates, a 65-year-old caretaker, on 13 June 2023, and attempting to kill three others. Calocane’s mother, Celeste, gave evidence for the first time at the inquiry into the attacks, which is looking at what happened in the lead-up and after the incident. Calocane was sectioned four times between 2020 and 2023. During this period, Celeste Calocane described repeatedly “raising flags” to medical staff but said “no one was acting on it”. The counsel to the inquiry, Rachel Langdale KC, said notes from May 2020 showed Ms Calocane had warned of her son’s “risk to others in his current mental state”, after he had attempted to break into a neighbour’s flat. Calocane was later admitted into hospital. During the first hospital admission, Ms Calocane’s other son, Elias, compiled a dossier of information and sent it to Calocane’s doctor. The document included violent and paranoid messages Calocane had sent to him, including one where he said he was “thinking about red rum”, which is murder spelled backwards. In another, Calocane told his brother he wanted to “hurt permanently”. …