Nottingham assault victims’ households lay flowers the place pair killed

The heartbroken families of the three people killed in the Nottingham attacks today remembered the ‘much-loved’ victims a year after they were murdered in the horrific stabbing incident.

Grace O’Malley-Kumar, Barnaby Webber and Ian Coates were violently stabbed to death in Nottingham City Centre in the early hours of June 13 last year.

On Thursday, hundreds of friends and fellow students joined Grace’s parents – Dr Sanjoy Kumar and Dr Sinead O’Malley, as well as her brother, James – and Barnaby’s dad and brother, David and Charlie Webber, to visit the scene on Ilkeston Road, Nottingham.

It was on that road that Valdo Calocane, 32, killed Grace and fellow student Barney, both 19, as they walked home from a night out, before going on to fatally stab school caretaker Ian, 65.

Lee Coates, the son of Ian, was also in attendance for the emotional remembrance event and embraced Barnaby’s mother Emma Webber as the family member’s gave speeches and held a two minute silence for the three victims at the University of Nottingham campus.  

Many wept as they left floral tributes to the victims, with members of Grace’s family placing bunches of roses on the pavement in her memory.

In a joint statement read out during the service, the victims’ relatives said they would take time to remember ‘the souls of the three vibrant, caring, hard-working and much loved family members who are no longer here’.

Afterwards the relatives chatted with those who had come to pay their respects, including Grace’s University of Nottingham hockey teammates, many of whom wore their full kits for the tribute.

Members of the university’s cricket team – which Barnaby was a part of – also took part in the emotional occasion.

Nottingham City Council closed the road for the event to allow the families and friends to walk around 400 yards together to the place where Calocane attacked Barnaby, 19, with a knife before turning his attention on Grace, who bravely tried to fight him off her friend. 

Barnaby’s father David Webber walked with his late son’s pet dog, Dougie, on a lead, and later movingly embraced Grace’s parents and family before leaving for a vigil and two-minute silence at the University of Nottingham campus.

Locals stood outside their homes to pay their respects to the undergraduates, including Fazilet Barak, who lives at the spot where Grace died, and where the tributes were laid.

The 52-year-old gave her condolences to the parents, and told them she was happy for future floral reminders to be left in her front yard to prevent them being taken, or damaged.

Fazilet added: ‘It was a very nice, calm, dignified occasion. There were so many people paying their respects.

‘I feel like Grace was here today, and would have seen everything.’

The families’ statement also reiterated their belief that Calocane should have been tried for murder, rather than being given an indefinite hospital order for manslaughter and three attempted murders.

Prosecutors accepted his not guilty pleas to murder at his sentencing at Nottingham Crown Court in January, after multiple psychiatrists concluded he had paranoid schizophrenia.

In their statement, relatives of those killed restated that they believed Calocane is a murderer, saying over-reliance on medical experts’ opinions and ‘archaic’ diminished responsibility laws meant the killer was not punished for his ‘heinous’ acts.

The family members said: ‘Today we will take time and pause to reflect upon that tragic day and remember the souls of the three vibrant, caring, hard-working and much-loved family members who are no longer here.

‘Today is not the day for fight. But tomorrow is. We continue in our relentless pursuit for appropriate justice, individual and organisational accountability, lasting change to our society and laws that will provide improved protection and public safety, appropriate punishment for crimes and improved support for victims and their families.

‘As three families we stand united by grief and loss, but fuelled by our anger at the scale of failings, poor policing, weak prosecution, dereliction of duty in medical care and a series of catastrophic missed opportunities that would, and should have stopped these entirely preventable deaths.’

Barnaby and Grace, originally of Taunton and London respectively, had been strolling home from a night out on Ilkeston Road when they were set upon at around 4am by Calocane just a two-minute walk from their university accommodation. They died after suffering multiple knife wounds.

Engineering graduate Calocane went on to kill school caretaker Ian Coates in the Mapperley Park area of Nottingham before stealing his van and ploughing into three pedestrians in Nottingham city centre. The rampage finally ended when he was tasered by police officers.

A week after the horrific attack, the city of Nottingham came together in mourning as then Home Secretary Suella Braverman laid a wreath to the victims.

Engineering graduate Calocane pleaded guilty to three counts of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, and three counts of attempted murder, after psychiatrists said he was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia at the time.

He was sentenced to an indefinite hospital order at Nottingham Crown Court earlier this year – but relatives of the victims were furious that prosecutors didn’t pursue the more serious offence of murder – meaning Calocane will likely avoid having to spend any time in jail.

The families also hit out at a series of ‘missed opportunities’ by cops and medical professionals that could have prevented the deaths, including the fact that Calocane was wanted by police at the time of his violent spree for assaulting an officer months earlier.

The bereaved relatives also confirmed that they have accepted the offer of support from Neil Hudgell, of Manchester-based Hudgell Solicitors, and Tim Moloney KC, of Doughty Street Chambers, and their legal teams.

A number of probes are currently taking place into the handling of the case, including a College of Policing review.