Families say Nottingham attack victims ‘failed by authorities’ after report
The Independent Office of Police Conduct report found Leicestershire Police missed a chance to detain killer Valdo Calocane a month before the attack.
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Your support makes all the difference.The families of Nottingham attacker Valdo Calocane’s victims have said their relatives were “badly failed by the authorities” following a report by a police watchdog.
The report by the Independent Office of Police Conduct (IOPC) into police handling of Calocane – who killed 19-year-old students Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar and 65-year-old caretaker Ian Coates in June 2023 – found a string of errors which meant he remained free, according to The Sun.
It said Leicestershire Police officers failed to arrest Calocane and did not interview witnesses after they were called to reports of him punching one person in the face and pushing over a woman at a warehouse in Kegworth, one month before the attacks in Nottingham.
The report, seen by the paper, also found they failed to check the police national computer, which would have identified Calocane was wanted for an attack on a police officer in Nottinghamshire in 2022, as well as not downloading CCTV footage of the warehouse attack.
The IOPC labelled the investigation “a missed opportunity” to prevent further attacks and “exceptionally poor”, but did not recommend gross misconduct charges against the Leicestershire officers for which they could be sacked. They will face a misconduct hearing.
In a statement to The Sun, the victims’ families said: “The damning failures exposed by this investigation are just another example of how our loved ones were badly failed by the authorities.
“If the police had just done their jobs properly by performing a simple check on the police national computer, Barnaby, Grace and Ian might still be alive today.”
They said they felt let down by the IOPC investigation, saying it was of “very poor quality”.
“The police force in question and the watchdog supposed to hold them to account are not fit for purpose,” they said.
The Prime Minister last week told the families that a judge-led public inquiry will take place in “a matter of weeks”.
Calocane was sentenced to an indefinite hospital order in January 2024 after admitting manslaughter by diminished responsibility and attempted murder.