26-05-2025
Nottingham victims' families call for manslaughter charges against NHS
The families of the Nottingham attack victims have called for corporate manslaughter charges to be brought against the NHS.
Dr Sanjoy Kumar, the father of Grace O'Malley-Kumar, said staff had failed 'at every level' after it emerged the man who killed his daughter was sectioned four times and let go without an effective plan in place on each occasion.
Valdo Calocane killed O'Malley-Kumar, 19, alongside fellow student Barnaby Webber, 19, and caretaker Ian Coates, 65, before attempting to kill three other people in Nottingham in June 2023.
Calocane, 34, was originally charged with murder, but this was downgraded to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility because of his paranoid schizophrenia.
There have been two major reports into Calocane's treatment before the killings, but Dr Kumar told The Telegraph he rejected their findings.
He said that while they highlighted errors and made recommendations, individuals had still not been held accountable.
Dr Kumar said: 'They need to pay the price with legal action like corporate manslaughter.'
He said the families of the victims would be travelling to London to meet Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, next month to ask him to hold individual medical staff accountable.
Dr Kumar said the families had been failed by staff working at 'every level' within Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust.
'It is clear they don't learn lessons,' he said.
'I will now endeavour to get all the staff and psychiatrists named who failed us. That is how we will stop this national epidemic of mental health-related homicide by holding individuals accountable.
'Calocane, the monster, was sectioned four times. Each time the lazy medics did nothing new in their management. They left this 30-year-old animal with 17 to 18-year-old students in the same halls of residence.'
An independent review into Calocane's treatment history before the killings was published in full in February
However, NHS officials had initially only planned to publish a summary of the 302-page report as they were concerned it contained his confidential medical details.
It was only after the families raised concerns that NHS England made an about-turn and agreed to publish it in full.
Dr Kumar said: 'If someone needed four hip replacements, their orthopaedic surgeon would be held accountable. So why, if someone is sectioned four times, are medics not held accountable?
'My mission is to end all mental health homicide in our country in the name of my brave and beautiful daughter. We must live in the safest country in Europe, our children in schools, on buses and colleges must be safe. All our relatives must be safe.'
The investigation highlighted repeated failures to treat Calocane's paranoid schizophrenia and escalating violent outbursts.
Doctors responsible for his care ignored repeated requests for Calocane to be given a community treatment order and long-acting antipsychotic drugs, despite pleas from nurses treating him in the community, who managed the risk to themselves by not visiting him alone.
He was admitted to hospital and sectioned under the Mental Health Act four times between 2020 and 2022 because of his violent behaviour and refusal to take his medication.
Mental health services eventually lost track of him and discharged him to a GP in the months before the attacks.
Violent psychosis
The investigation found Calocane's care team accepted he did not want to take a long-lasting antipsychotic drug for reasons including 'him not liking needles'.
The authors also echoed concerns from a report published six months before by the Care Quality Commission, which identified five missed opportunities to deal with Calocane's violent psychosis.
It found Calocane regularly failed to take his schizophrenia medication and there was a 'theme running through his clinical records' that he did not believe he was ill.
Last week, the terms of reference for the public inquiry, which will begin hearing evidence later this year, were published for the first time.
It will examine the role of prosecutors, police and medical staff in the years leading up to the killings, and their response in the aftermath.
Nottinghamshire Police has previously admitted it should have done more to arrest Calocane sooner.
A warrant for his arrest in relation to an assault on an emergency worker had been outstanding for nine months before the killings.
The inquiry will also look at the police decision not to take toxicology samples from Calocane following the attack.
