A man has pleaded not guilty to the murder of three people who were killed in a spate of attacks in Nottingham in June but has admitted manslaughter, as well as the attempted murder of three other individuals.
Grace O’Malley-Kumar and Barnaby Webber, both 19-year-old students at the University of Nottingham, and a 65-year-old school caretaker, Ian Coates, were stabbed in the street and killed in the early hours of 13 June.
A van belonging to Coates was then stolen and driven into pedestrians. Wayne Birkett, Marcin Gawronski and Sharon Miller sustained serious injuries.
Valdo Calocane, 32, who also uses the name Adam Mendes, pleaded not guilty on Tuesday at Nottingham crown court to murder on grounds of diminished responsibility, but has admitted manslaughter and attempted murder.
He appeared in the dock wearing a dark suit, and answered to the name Adam Mendes.
The defence lawyer Pete Joyce KC said “the defendant does not dispute the physical acts of any of the prosecution’s case” but the defence say he “was suffering from extreme mental illness” at the time.
The case has been adjourned until 16 January and the prosecution will review medical evidence before considering whether to accept the pleas.
All the charges related to a 90-minute period in Nottingham in the early hours of 13 June, and thousands of people attended vigils for the victims after the attacks.
First-year students O’Malley-Kumar and Webber were fatally stabbed while returning from a night out in the city at around 4am, and Coates was found dead 2 miles away after being stabbed while on his way to work. His van was taken into Nottingham city centre where it was driven into pedestrians waiting near a bus stop.
Calocane, a former engineering student at the University of Nottingham, was arrested when he abandoned the vehicle and approached officers with a knife.
O’Malley-Kumar was a medical student and hockey player from Woodford, in London, who had wanted to apply to the Royal Army Medical Corps. At her funeral in Westminster cathedral in July, her father, Dr Sanjoy Kumar, said she was an “angelic child” who tried to “outdo others in serving her country and her community. She was truly amazing,” he said.
Webber, a history student from Taunton, Somerset, was a cricketer who was described by his family as a “beautiful, brilliant, bright young man”.
Coates, who was approaching retirement, was a Nottingham Forest fan and known for setting up a fishing club to help young people. His sons said his death had “rocked everyone’s world”.
