{"id":506541,"date":"2026-04-01T05:40:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T05:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/506541\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T05:40:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T05:40:11","slug":"police-jumped-the-gun-to-charge-nottingham-attacks-killer-inquiry-told","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/506541\/","title":{"rendered":"Police ‘jumped the gun’ to charge Nottingham attacks killer, inquiry told"},"content":{"rendered":"

After Calocane – who had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in 2020 – was sentenced in January 2024, the CPS said medical experts agreed<\/a> his condition “impaired his ability to exercise self-control”.<\/p>\n

Murphy told the inquiry it was clear mental health issues would play a part in the case early on.<\/p>\n

On 23 November 2023, the inquiry heard a meeting had been held for prosecutors to decide whether to accept Calocane’s guilty pleas to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.<\/p>\n

Asked if he had viewed evidence about Calocane’s previous interactions with mental health professionals sceptically, Murphy said he was aware from evidence that the killer had sometimes been “unreliable in his story”.<\/p>\n

He accepted there had been “occasions when he doesn’t tell the truth”. <\/p>\n

“So, when I came to my ultimate decisions about the case I was careful, always, to look for supporting evidence and not simply rely on what VC was saying to anyone,” Murphy added. <\/p>\n

The inquiry heard a number of experts had been instructed by the CPS to assess Calocane<\/a> and his defence had also produced its own psychiatric report. However, the victims’ families had raised concerns about those reports. <\/p>\n

Langdale KC said: “You were all looking at this case, reasonable questions were being raised by the families that needed further investigation. <\/p>\n

“Do you agree it appears rushed that it just had to be gotten through when these are really serious issues with lifelong consequences all-round?”<\/p>\n

In response, Murphy said: “We had a very thorough – in my view – report from [forensic psychiatrist Prof Nigel Blackwood] and we were going to get a further report from [a second forensic psychologist Dr Richard Latham], so if we needed more time we would’ve asked for it, but we didn’t need it.”<\/p>\n

Asked whether it would have been better to meet the bereaved families before discussions about Calocane’s pleas, Murphy told the inquiry they had not been witnesses and could not have provided evidence to inform the decision.<\/p>\n

“The purpose of having the meeting on the 23rd [November 2023] was to make the decision so that it could then be imparted to the families on the 24th,” he added. <\/p>\n

The inquiry will continue, after a short break, on 13 April.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After Calocane – who had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in 2020 – was sentenced in January 2024,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":506542,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-506541","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-greatbritain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=506541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506541\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/506542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=506541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=506541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=506541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}