'We demand accountability'

Families of Nottingham attack victims excoriate NHS after release of damning report into killer Valdo Calocane’s care

- BARNEY DAVIS, HOLLY EVANS

The families of the Nottingham attack victims have said that doctors must be held responsible for their “failure” to treat triple killer Valdo Calocane appropriately.

Dr Sanjoy Kumar, the father of Grace O’Malley-Kumar, told a press conference he would be writing to health secretary Wes Streeting to order the mental health trust in question to hold individual clinicians “responsible”, adding: “We demand accountability.”

Following the release of a damning report into his care, the families have criticised the NHS for releasing the “ticking timebomb” killer despite being scared to treat him.

Calocane, who had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, was sentenced to an indefinite hospital order after killing 19-year-old students Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar and 65-year-old caretaker Ian Coates before attempting to kill three other people, in a spate of attacks in Nottingham in June 2023.

An independent report released yesterday said Calocane was not forced to have long-lasting anti-psychotic medication because he did not like needles. It also revealed that other patients cared for by Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust also committed “extremely serious” acts of violence – including stabbings – between 2019 and 2023.

Dr Kumar said: “We will be asking the secretary of state for health to order the trust to hold individual doctors responsible as they know Valdo Calocane was an evil, violent man – a known risk to the public who did not take his medication.