Doctors must be accountable for failures in killer’s care, victim’s family say
Dr Sanjoy Kumar said he would be writing to the Health Secretary demanding doctors are held responsible over Valdo Calocane.
Doctors must be held responsible for their “failure” to treat Nottingham triple killer Valdo Calocane appropriately, the family of one of his victims have said.
Dr Sanjoy Kumar, the father of Grace O’Malley Kumar, told a press conference he would be writing to Health Secretary Wes Streeting to order the mental health trust in question to hold individual clinicians “responsible”, adding: “We demand accountability.”
His words follow those of the mother of Barnaby Webber, Emma Webber, who told the PA news agency that a report into Calocane’s care is a “horror show” that showed mental health teams “missed opportunities because “they just didn’t do their jobs properly”.
Speaking at the press conference, Mrs Webber said Calocane “got away with murder”, but acting on behalf of the families, solicitor Neil Hudgell said resentencing “does not appear to be on the landscape”.
Calocane, who had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, was sentenced to an indefinite hospital order after killing 19-year-old students Barnaby and Grace and caretaker Ian Coates, 65, before attempting to kill three other people, in a spate of attacks in Nottingham in June 2023.
Speaking to reporters at a press conference in London on Wednesday, Dr Kumar said: “We’ve been failed at every intersection that Valdo Calocane had with any authority.”
Demanding individual accountability for the failures shown in the report, he added: “This report published highlights the failures of the mental health trust, but it fails my wife and I, as clinicians working at the NHS, for the failure to treat Valdo Calocane appropriately.
“We will be asking the Secretary of State for Health to order the trust to hold individual doctors responsible as they know Valdo Calocane was an evil, violent man – a known risk to the public who did not take his medication.”
The report said Calocane was not forced to have long-lasting anti-psychotic medication because he did not like needles.
The review said other patients cared for by Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust also committed “extremely serious” acts of violence – including stabbings – between 2019 and 2023.
Mrs Webber urged the Prime Minister not to renege on the promise of a public inquiry following the report’s publication, telling PA: “It has to have teeth – there’s no point in doing it otherwise.”
Solicitor Neil Hudgell, acting on behalf of the families of the Nottingham attack victims, said they will meet the Government next week to discuss a statutory public inquiry.
Grace’s mother, Dr Sinead O’Malley-Kumar, said there had been poor decision-making and “laziness” among health staff who treated her daughter’s killer.
She said: “If any of them knew that Valdo Calocane was going to go out and share student accommodation with their children, I suspect their choices may have changed.
“Accountability on an individual level is essential.”
Dr Kumar continued: “He was sectioned four times. Four times. The psychiatrist failed to change his treatment four times.
“They failed to put provisions in the community to make sure he took his medication, ultimately irresponsibly discharging him into the community to do harm.
“They failed to consider public safety in Nottingham.”
Mrs Webber told PA that since Sir Keir Starmer promised a statutory public inquiry if Labour took office last year, the families “keep getting pushbacks”.
As the press conference drew to a close, she told reporters: “I do think it’s time now that we get the opportunity to meet with the Prime Minister.”In a statement released after the report’s publication, Health Secretary Wes Streeting said: “The findings will help to support an inquiry into this attack and we’ll set out the next steps as this develops.
“It’s clear there were failings in how the care provided to Valdo Calocane was managed at every level, which is why I’ve personally called for all the recommendations made in the CQC (Care Quality Commission) report to be implemented across the country.
“I want to see the recommendations from this new report implemented as soon as possible and I will be keeping track of progress and performance to make sure that they are.”
