Families of attacks victims slam police watchdog after officers are allegedly told they would get off lightly

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- By GEORGE LITHGOW & GEORGE PALMER-SOADY

THE families of the Nottingham attacks victims have questioned the integrity of the police watchdog after its staff allegedly told officers they would not be duly criticised in an investigation into the attacks.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) has launched an inquiry into its own officers after claims they said a previous probe into failings in the run up to the attacks was “politically motivated.”

Police officers who failed to arrest killer Valdo Calocane were also allegedly told their case was “being driven by the families of the victims,’ The Times reports.

The IOPC was set up to independently handle complaints against police forces across England.

However, the “legitimacy, honesty and integrity” of the body has now been questioned by the families of 65-year old caretaker Ian Coates, and 19-year-old students Barnaby Webber, and Grace O’Malley-Kumar, who were killed by Calocane in Nottingham on June 13, 2023.

An upcoming two-year public inquiry will look to scrutinise the Leicestershire Police officers who failed to properly investigate an assault on warehouse workers by Calocane, which could have stopped his murder spree a month later.

Yet, it is claimed these police officers were told by investigators at the IOPC that, after the inquiry, they would get off with “words of advice or reflective practice” - the lowest punishment they can receive.

“If we cannot trust them to hold the police to account, then who can we trust,” the families of the victims said in a joint statement on Thursday evening.