Sir Keir Starmer has told the families of those killed in the Nottingham attacks that a judge-led public inquiry will start in “a matter of weeks”.
The families of Barnaby Webber, Grace O’Malley-Kumar and Ian Coates were told at an emotionally charged meeting at Number 10 that a “number of different agencies” would be scrutinised by the probe.
Students Mr Webber and Ms O’Malley-Kumar, both 19, and 65-year-old caretaker Mr Coates were killed by Valdo Calocane before he attempted to kill three other people in a spate of attacks in the city in June 2023.
Calocane was sentenced to an indefinite hospital order in January last year after admitting manslaughter by diminished responsibility and attempted murder.
The victims’ families met with Sir Keir Stamer at Downing Street on Wednesday. Pic: PA
Prosecutors accepted a plea of manslaughter after experts agreed his schizophrenia meant he was not fully responsible for his actions. The families said recently he had “got away with murder”.
Speaking outside Downing Street on Wednesday, Emma Webber, Barnaby’s mother, said: “It’s the first bit of positive news that we’ve been able to have for a very, very long time. We’re still processing it.”
Dr Sanjoy Kumar, Grace’s father, added: “As we have always said as families, everywhere that Valdo Calocane intersected with the authorities, we were let down.”
He then said the public inquiry “has been fantastic news for all of us, we welcome it, we’ve been working so hard to it”.
“Everyone who has also suffered the way we had, we will make sure that changes come from our inquiry for the betterment of our country that makes… the land safer for all of us.”
Emma Webber said the inquiry was the ‘first bit of positive news’ for a while. Pic: PA
Mrs Webber also said the families were told the inquiry would be concluded within two years, and Dr Kumar thanked the prime minister “from a father to a father”.
During the meeting, Sir Keir said focusing on just one aspect of the case would not be right as he did not “think that will do justice,” and said it would be a statutory inquiry.
He added a retired judge is set to be appointed in due course, and said: “As soon as that happens, the process will start.”
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Speaking later to Sky News’s The UK Tonight with Sarah-Jane Mee, Mrs Webber said the families had to endure “torture” to “get this far”.
She added: “Had we not as a collective had sheer doggedness, I don’t believe for a single moment that we would have been sat there (in Number 10) today.”
Mrs Webber went on: “I wanted and needed to hear one word today – statutory. I think we made our case quite clear last week [on] why it had to be a statutory public inquiry, which would be judge-led, because only then will the truth come out.
“Answers will be found, there will be accountability, and there will be change.”
Dr Sinead O’Malley-Kumar, Grace’s mother, told Sky News: “We need to find out where patients are slipping through the cracks, why patients aren’t being treated properly, where the pressures are. Are there no beds for these patients, are the managers pressurised? The patients aren’t getting the treatment they need. It’s putting patients at risk and families at risk and the public at risk.”
The meeting came after NHS England’s report into Calocane’s mental health care in the lead-up to the attacks, which found treatment available to him “was not always sufficient to meet his needs”.
The report detailed four hospital admissions between 2020 and 2022 and multiple contacts with community teams before he was discharged to his GP because of a lack of interaction with mental health services.
It also found Calocane was allowed to avoid taking long-lasting antipsychotic medication as he did not like needles, and did not consider himself to have a mental health condition.