{"id":584283,"date":"2026-05-14T21:22:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T21:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/584283\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T21:22:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T21:22:10","slug":"mental-health-system-is-broken-says-mother-of-nottingham-triple-killer-nottingham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/584283\/","title":{"rendered":"Mental health system is broken, says mother of Nottingham triple killer | Nottingham"},"content":{"rendered":"

The mother of the man who killed three people in an attack in Nottingham in 2023<\/a> has told an inquiry that the mental health system is broken and that until there is a crisis \u201cno one listens to you\u201d.<\/p>\n

Valdo Calocane, who has paranoid schizophrenia, was sentenced to a suspended hospital order in January 2024 after killing the students Barnaby Webber and Grace O\u2019Malley-Kumar, both 19, and Ian Coates, a 65-year-old caretaker, on 13 June 2023 and attempting to kill three others.<\/p>\n

Calocane\u2019s mother, Celeste, gave evidence for the first time at the inquiry into the attacks, which is looking at what happened before and after the incident. Calocane was sectioned four times between 2020 and 2023. Celeste Calocane described repeatedly \u201craising flags\u201d to medical staff during this period but said \u201cno one was acting on it\u201d.<\/p>\n

The counsel to the inquiry, Rachel Langdale KC, said notes from May 2020 showed Ms Calocane had warned of her son\u2019s \u201crisk to others in his current mental state\u201d, after he had attempted to break into a neighbour\u2019s flat. Calocane was later admitted to hospital.<\/p>\n

During the first hospital admission, Ms Calocane\u2019s other son, Elias, compiled a dossier of information and sent it to Calocane\u2019s doctor. The document included violent and paranoid messages Calocane had sent to him, including one where he said he was \u201cthinking about red rum\u201d, which is murder spelled backwards. In another message, Calocane told his brother he wanted to \u201churt permanently\u201d.<\/p>\n

Calocane\u2019s mother said she did not look at the document at the time and doctors did not respond to it, so she thought it was not \u201cuseful\u201d to them. She said she wanted her son to be diagnosed but doctors advised against it and instead said Calocane was suffering with a \u201cpsychotic picture\u201d. Calocane was discharged from hospital on 13 June 2020, against his mother\u2019s wishes.<\/p>\n

One month later, Ms Calocane contacted her son\u2019s crisis team to alert them to concerns over his mental state. Two days later, Calocane tried to break into a neighbour\u2019s flat again and was sectioned for a second time. She said: \u201cI [knew] something wasn\u2019t right because of our conversation. So I phoned the services and they just didn\u2019t do anything about it until he was in crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n

The inquiry was previously told that during Calocane\u2019s second hospital admission a doctor said Calocane could \u201cend up killing someone\u201d and his diagnosis was \u201clikely schizophrenia\u201d. Ms Calocane told the inquiry that she was not informed of this at the time.<\/p>\n

She said she had hoped her son would be kept in hospital for at least six months but he was discharged after two weeks. She also told the inquiry that in August 2020 she warned of Calocane\u2019s \u201crisk to others\u201d.<\/p>\n

Asked if anyone discussed her son\u2019s risk with her, Ms Calocane said: \u201cNever. I just had to navigate the system myself and try to make sense of what was going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added: \u201cI was doing a mental health job for them, even though I wasn\u2019t trained, I was the one raising the flags \u2026 no one was acting on it, until I said something.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms Calocane also told the inquiry on several occasions she was denied information from medical professionals because her son had instructed staff not to share any details.<\/p>\n

She was challenged on why she did not leave work on the morning of 13 June 2023 when Elias had told her about a call he had received from Calocane.<\/p>\n

The inquiry heard that Calocane told Elias in the call that it would be the last time he would hear from him, and then when asked if he would do something stupid, Calocane said it was \u201calready done\u201d. Ms Calocane told the inquiry that she feared her son had attempted to kill himself. However, at this point Calocane had killed Webber and O\u2019Malley-Kumar.<\/p>\n

Asked why she did not leave work, she said: \u201cLooking back, maybe that\u2019s what I should have done, but I didn\u2019t do that because this is something I\u2019ve been living with for the last three years.\u201d<\/p>\n

The inquiry continues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The mother of the man who killed three people in an attack in Nottingham in 2023 has told…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":584284,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-584283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584283","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=584283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584283\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/584284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=584283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=584283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=584283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}