THE GRIEVING families of the Nottingham rampage victims have blasted the police’s failure to not tell them they were being stalked as “staggering”.
Students Grace O’Malley-Kumar and Barnaby Webber, both 19, and school caretaker Ian Coates, 65, were stabbed to death by paranoid schizophrenic Valdo Calocane, 34, on June 13, 2023.
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Now, it has been revealed that cops failed to notify their families they were being followed by another man with a history of mental illness, reports The Times.
The individual had a past record of threatening behaviour, had been referred to the Prevent programme and had absconded from a mental health facility after he was sectioned, reports The Times.
Obsessed with the Nottingham attack and believing their had been a “cover up”, the man subsequently attempted to seek out the parents of two of Calocane’s victims.
But it took 18 months for officers to tell Barnaby Webber’s family the man had travelled to Somerset to find them.
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And when the man fled a mental health hospital – after he was sectioned for threatening London ambulance staff – it took cops one week to let the families know he was on the loose.
Emma Webber, who’s son Charlie attends school in the area, said it was “profoundly upsetting”.
“To discover that we were left completely in the dark, without any safeguarding advice or guidance for our family, workplaces or Charlie’s school, while police officials were quietly circulating internal subject profiles and consulting legal teams, is both terrifying and deeply unacceptable,” she said.
She blasted Nottinghamshire Police for a “systemic lack of transparency, inadequate risk assessment and a severe breach of duty”.
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The man had also tried to reach Dr Sanjoy Kumar – father of murdered Grace O’Malley-Kumar – at his GP surgery.
Dr Kumar said he was left “horrified” to discover he had “not been given an official warning”.
“We as victims do not even get a fair warning at the time that this man was missing from being sectioned and trying to find us,” he fumed.
“This is how the country treats victims, we are second-class citizens.”
He also highlighted the difference in treatment between his family and Calocane’s, who were provided with police protection following his rampage.
Cops played down the threat the man posed to the victims’ families, saying he was trying to “offer his help” while failing to mention his background.
Ian Coates’ son James said on the police failures to notify families that was “just not surprised anymore”.
Nottinghamshire Police has reportedly referred itself to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC).
The IOPC has also apologised to the families for not informing them sooner.
Calocane is serving an indefinite hospital order after prosecutors accepted his guilty pleas to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
Earlier this year, damning evidence revealed how signs that Valdo Calocane was a danger to the public were ignored by two police forces, mental health workers and university staff from as early as May 2020.
He was known to police for violence and stalking and had been sectioned four times.
In July, The Sun reported how the NHS trust that discharged the twisted killer is now facing a manslaughter probe.
The victims’ families said the “fear of stigma and bias” from authorities had left Calocane free to kill and previously slammed doctors for their “failure” to treat the killer appropriately.
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Earlier this year they blamed “decades of entirely predictable failures” for their loved ones’ deaths.
The inquiry into the Nottingham attacks, which lasted more than three months and heard from 164 witnesses, finished in June.