Prosecutors have accepted a plea of manslaughter from the man who stabbed two university students and a caretaker in Nottingham.
Valdo Calocane stabbed to death Nottingham University students Grace O’Malley-Kumar and Barnaby Webber, who were studying medicine and history respectively, on Ilkeston Road at around 4am on June 13.
School caretaker Ian Coates was then found dead in Magdala Road around an hour later, having also been stabbed “repeatedly”.
The defendant then used Mr Coates’ van to drive at three pedestrians, Wayne Birkett, Marcin Gawronski and Sharon Miller, in Milton Street and South Sherwood Street.
They all survived the attack.
Prosecutor Karim Khalil KC told Nottingham Crown Court the families of Mr Webber and Miss O’Malley-Kumar, both 19, and Mr Coates, 65, had been consulted before the pleas entered by Calocane were accepted.
Calocane pleaded guilty at a previous hearing to the manslaughter of Mr Coates and that of Barnaby and Grace.
He also admitted attempting to murder three pedestrians who were hit by a van in the early hours of June 13 last year.
The 32-year-old, who appeared in the dock dressed in a dark suit and a light blue shirt, now faces a sentencing hearing expected to last for about two days.
Three psychiatrists had assessed Calocane, the court heard, concluding that despite suffering paranoid schizophrenia he would have understood the nature of his conduct in attacking three of his victims with a dagger - described in court as “a double-edged fighting knife”.
The prosecutor said: “We have also consulted with the families of the deceased.
“We considered carefully representations made in the course of those consultations; we also considered the particular gravity and complexity of this case, including that which we submit are the grossly aggravating factors of the multiplicity of fatal and intended fatal offending.
“In these circumstances, the Crown concluded that it was appropriate to accept the pleas to manslaughter on the basis of diminished responsibility.
“For the avoidance of any possible doubt, it is the Crown’s position that the appalling facts of this case render it to be one of the utmost seriousness.”
The prosecution’s decision to accept the pleas entered by Calocane in November means he will not face trial for murder.
Calocane, who appeared in the dock wearing a dark suit and light blue shirt, now faces a sentencing hearing expected to last for around two days.
In the days after the attacks, thousands of people attended vigils in the city in memory of the victims, where their families paid emotional tributes to them.
The family of Mr Webber, a history student from Taunton in Somerset, described their “complete devastation” at the “senseless murder of our son”, saying he was a “beautiful, brilliant, bright young man, with everything in life to look forward to”.
Ms O’Malley-Kumar’s family described her as a “truly wonderful and beautiful young lady” who would be “so dearly missed”.
The medical student, from Woodford in London, had represented Essex in cricket as a teenager and had also played for England Hockey.
Two of Mr Coates’ sons said his death had “rocked everyone’s world”, adding: “Nobody deserves this but he definitely didn’t.”
