A 14-week public inquiry into the ‘Nottingham attacks’ concluded on Friday, June 5th—leaving many questions unanswered. Speaking for families of the victims, Emma—mother of the slain Barnaby Webber—condemned a “catastrophic collapse of responsibility” and an “undoubted miscarriage of justice,” adding, “Every single agency failed,” including England’s National Health Service (NHS).
Valdo Calocane, who has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, stabbed 19-year-old students Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar, along with school caretaker Ian Coates, to death before stealing Coates’ van and attempting to kill three others with it in the East Midlands city of Nottingham on June 13th, 2023.
As europeanconservative.com noted previously,
Calocane was known to the authorities and was diagnosed with schizophrenia. He was supposed to be in the care of the NHS, but kept refusing treatment, because he was afraid of needles. Nobody involved seemed all that concerned with ensuring that Calocane actually received the antipsychotic medication he needed. The cost of this carelessness and apathy was three people’s lives.
A disturbing factor in the build-up to the triple killing is that, it’s alleged, doctors were being discouraged from taking control of mentally ill (‘sectioning’) black patients, because NHS services were told to reduce the ‘over-representation’ of African and Caribbean people being detained. Such revelations have added to the perception of ‘two-tier justice’ in modern Britain.
On January 25th, Calocane had a hospital order with a restriction order under s37 and 41 of the Mental Health Act 1983 imposed, meaning he avoided criminal penalties. This was later referred to the Court of Appeal as unduly lenient. As Nottingham-based sociologist and commentator Lisa Mckenzie argued on X,
the State allowed him to literally get away with murder & never have to answer for what he did. The #Nottinghaminquiry has provided evidence for accountability. And that is what we all deserve now: accountability & justice.
Failure to adequately intervene within mental health provisions, coupled with ideological preoccupations around race, explain in part how this catastrophe hit Nottingham.
The full findings of the inquiry are scheduled to be made public in Spring 2027.
