Topic analysis

Mental health system is broken, says mother of Nottingham triple killer

Celeste Calocane gives evidence for first time at inquiry into Valdo Calocane’s 2023 attacks The mother of the man who killed three people in an attack in Nottingham in 2023 has told an inquiry that the mental health system is broken and that until there is a crisis “no one listens to you”. Valdo Calocane, who has paranoid schizophrenia, was sentenced to a suspended hospital order in January 2024 after killing the students Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar, both 19, and Ian Coates, a 65-year-old caretaker, on 13 June 2023 and attempting to kill three others. Calocane’s mother, Celeste, gave evidence for the first time at the inquiry into the attacks, which is looking at what happened before and after the incident. Calocane was sectioned four times between 2020 and 2023. Celeste Calocane described repeatedly “raising flags” to medical staff during this period but said “no one was acting on it”. The counsel to the inquiry, Rachel Langdale KC, said notes from May 2020 showed Ms Calocane had warned of her son’s “risk to others in his current mental state”, after he had attempted to break into a neighbour’s flat. Calocane was later admitted to hospital. During the first hospital admission, Ms Calocane’s other son, Elias, compiled a dossier of information and sent it to Calocane’s doctor. The document included violent and paranoid messages Calocane had sent to him, including one where he said he was “thinking about red rum”, which is murder spelled backwards. In another message, Calocane told his brother he wanted to “hurt permanently”. Calocane’s mother said she did not look at the document at the time and doctors did not respond to it, so she thought it was not “useful” to them. She said she wanted her son to be diagnosed but doctors advised against it and instead said Calocane was suffering with a “psychotic picture”. Calocane was discharged from hospital on 13 June 2020, against his mother’s wishes. One month later, Ms Calocane contacted her son’s crisis team to alert them to concerns over his mental state. Two days later, Calocane tried to break into a neighbour’s flat again and was sectioned for a second time. She said: “I [knew] something wasn’t right because of our conversation. So I phoned the services and they just didn’t do anything about it until he was in crisis.” The inquiry was previously told that during Calocane’s second hospital admission a doctor said Calocane could “end up killing someone” and his diagnosis was “likely schizophrenia”. Ms Calocane told the inquiry that she was not informed of this at the time. She said she had hoped her son would be kept in hospital for at least six months but he was discharged after two weeks. She also told the inquiry that in August 2020 she warned of Calocane’s “risk to others”. Asked if anyone discussed her son’s risk with her, Ms Calocane said: “Never. I just had to navigate the system myself and try to make sense of what was going on.” She added: “I was doing a mental health job for them, even though I wasn’t trained, I was the one raising the flags … no one was acting on it, until I said something.” Ms Calocane also told the inquiry on several occasions she was denied information from medical professionals because her son had instructed staff not to share any details. She was challenged on why she did not leave work on the morning of 13 June 2023 when Elias had told her about a call he had received from Calocane. The inquiry heard that Calocane told Elias in the call that it would be the last time he would hear from him, and then when asked if he would do something stupid, Calocane said it was “already done”. Ms Calocane told the inquiry that she feared her son had attempted to kill himself. However, at this point Calocane had killed Webber and O’Malley-Kumar. Asked why she did not leave work, she said: “Looking back, maybe that’s what I should have done, but I didn’t do that because this is something I’ve been living with for the last three years.” The inquiry continues.