Justice has not been served, according to the families of the three people stabbed to death by Valdo Calocane last summer – Grace O’Malley-Kumar, Barnaby Webber and Ian Coates. It is hard to disagree; Calocane may have been sentenced last week to indefinite detention in a secure hospital as a result of his paranoid schizophrenia, but there remain many unanswered questions about why a man known to the authorities, clearly dangerous to the community and capable of this level of premeditated attack was able to commit these horrific crimes, leaving three grieving families and other victims with life-changing injuries.
There were many missed opportunities to thwart Calocane. He had been known to mental health services since 2020, after he was sectioned and hospitalised following violent episodes. His family tried to raise concerns about his health and behaviour the following year; and after a search warrant was eventually issued, months’ worth of unused medication was found at his home. There were documented instances of him engaging in violence, not least the assault of a police officer in September 2021. When he failed to appear in court a year later, a warrant was issued for his arrest that was still outstanding when he killed O’Malley-Kumar, Webber and Coates. There must be a multi-agency inquiry to understand how Calocane could slip through the net for so long, akin to the serious case reviews carried out when a child has died as a result of suspected abuse or neglect.
