News, Nottingham
News, East Midlands
The father of a student killed in the Nottingham attacks has said the survivors also deserve answers from a public inquiry into what happened.
Wayne Birkett, Sharon Miller and Marcin Gawronski were all seriously injured after Valdo Calocane hit them with a stolen van in the city centre on 13 June 2023.
Earlier that morning, he fatally stabbed students Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar, both 19, and caretaker Ian Coates, 65.
Grace’s father, Sanjoy Kumar, described the pedestrians as “living victims” and said everyone affected by the attacks was “united” ahead of a judge-led public inquiry announced earlier in the year.
Mr Birkett said: “I would have swapped my life for one of those poor students – without a doubt.
“It was awful hearing what happened to them [in the court case]. What happened to me was nothing compared to that.”
While Ms Miller added: “When I heard what had happened to Barnaby or Grace, I thought, ‘I wish he’d took me instead of them’.
“They were so young and still had their lives ahead of them – you just feel so guilty.”
Dr Kumar said: “We all within this process have a sense of guilt.
“I wasn’t there on the night to protect my daughter. There are all kinds of complex emotions from everyone who’s involved in this case.
“The families all suffer from a whole wide range of post-traumatic stress disorder and one of the characteristics is guilt.
“Our friends also suffer with guilt and feelings like survivors do – it’s really quite amazing how far-reaching the feelings of despair are.
“We are united in trying to find why these preventable attacks happened.”
Calocane, who had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia before the attacks, was sentenced to a hospital order in January 2024 after admitting three counts of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility and three counts of attempted murder.
The case has prompted a number of reviews, including a mental health homicide review commissioned by NHS England.
And earlier this year, Ms Miller and Mr Birkett, alongside the families of Mr Webber, Ms O’Malley-Kumar and Mr Coates, were invited to Downing Street to discuss plans for a judge-led public inquiry.
They both plan to engage fully with the inquiry, set to be chaired by Her Honour Deborah Taylor, and hope it will provide answers that lead to meaningful changes to help prevent similar incidents in the future.
Dr Kumar said: “Our children shouldn’t have died, there were failures across the system that were preventable.
“We are going to make sure that this inquiry is as wide-reaching as possible.”
