Families of the victims of Nottingham knife killer Valdo Calocane have urged NHS England to rethink a decision not to publish a report into the care he received in full.
Calocane 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 others, in a spate of attacks in Nottingham in June 2023.
Prosecutors accepted his not guilty pleas to murder after medical evidence showed he had paranoid schizophrenia. He was later sentenced for manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility and attempted murder.
A summary of the independent mental health homicide report is due to be made publicly available later this week, but the full version will be kept confidential due to “data protection legislation relating to patient information”.
The PA news agency reported on Monday that only Nottinghamshire Healthcare Foundation Trust will have access to the full report, with all other mental health trusts also receiving just a summary.
Speaking on behalf of the families ahead of the NHS England (NHSE) report’s publication, adviser Radd Seiger said: “The families have already reached out to NHSE to strongly urge them to publish the findings in full.
“They believe it is very much in the public interest and in the interests of safety to do so. NHSE have thus far refused.”
An NHS England spokesperson said: “Independent mental health homicide reports are commissioned by NHS England and published in line with the requirements of confidentiality and data protection legislation relating to patient information.”
In August, a damning report by the Care Quality Commission into the care previously received by Calocane found the trust’s mental health unit “minimised or omitted” key details of the serious risk he posed to others.
The watchdog laid out “gross, systematic failures”. It found that risk assessments had played down Calocane’s refusal to take his medication and his persistent symptoms of psychosis, and that he was released after undergoing eight separate risk assessments.
That report prompted the families of his victims to allege that services caring for him in the lead-up to the attacks “have blood on their hands”.
In response, the Department of Health confirmed there would be a public inquiry into the failings in Calocane’s care.
Writing in The Sun last August, health secretary Wes Streeting warned that Calocane’s crimes had “exposed holes in a broken system”.
“More must be done,” the health secretary wrote. “This Government wants to assure itself that no families must go through the unspeakable horror of that day because of systemic failings.”
Additional reporting by PA
