Nottingham attack families rail against justice system

Court dashes their hopes of stiffer sentence for triple killer

- TARA COBHAM

The families of the victims of the Nottingham killer have said they “now face their own life sentence of ensuring the monster is never released” after the Court of Appeal ruled his sentence will not be changed. The loved ones of students Barnaby Webber, Grace O’Malley-Kumar and caretaker Ian Coates hit out at the “utterly flawed” justice system after the ruling yesterday, as their hopes for a stiffer sentence were dashed.

Valdo Calocane, 32, repeatedly stabbed the three victims during a knife rampage in Nottingham last summer. After pleading guilty to manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility as well as three other attempted murder counts, Calocane, who has treatment-resistant paranoid schizophrenia, was handed an indefinite hospital order to the dismay of his victims’ families.

Following his sentencing in January, the attorney general referred the case to the Court of Appeal to examine whether it had been “unduly lenient”, given the premeditation of the attacks and the 32-year-old’s history of refusing to take medication.

However, judges dismissed the bid yesterday, stating that while Calocane’s offences caused “unimaginable grief”, his sentence was not unduly lenient as his paranoid schizophrenia was “the sole identified cause of these crimes”.

In a statement following the appeal court’s decision, Emma Webber, Barnaby’s mother, said: “[Yesterday’s] ruling comes as no surprise to the families of the Nottingham attack victims. It was inevitable and was not a review of anything other than the letter of the law as it stands.