Police too busy with shoplifting crackdown to arrest future triple killer who did not attend court docket over violent assault, inquiry informed

Police failed to arrest a future triple-killer wanted for assaulting an officer because they were too busy with a shoplifting crackdown, an inquiry heard.

Valdo Calocane was supposed to appear in court charged with assaulting PC Barnaby Pritchard when Nottinghamshire Police tried to section him under the Mental Health Act in September 2021.

Yet nobody chased it up when Calocane, who was previously arrested for a series of violent incidents, failed to turn up to the magistrates’ court.

He was only caught months later, when police were called to a separate incident in which he allegedly assaulted a factory worker and officers realised he was subject to a bail warrant.

Calocane, 34, went on to kill three people in a stabbing rampage in 2023.

An inquiry is looking into why the paranoid schizophrenic was free to commit the atrocity, examining failings with how he was managed by police, medics and his university.

PC David Myers, the officer in charge of PC Pritchard’s assault case, said he did not realise Calocane failed to appear in court over the incident until September 2022.

Asked if he then took steps to locate Calocate, he told the inquiry: ‘No, because our entire team were given a new priority of ‘go and sort out the shoplifting in Clifton’ and that took our entire team’s efforts.’

Valdo Calocane had a history of violence before he killed three people in a stabbing rampage in 2023

He said he believed another team would have executed the warrant, but did not chase this up.  

The inquiry heard Nottinghamshire Police drafted a press release stating the reason the warrant Calocane was not acted upon was because he lived a ‘nomadic’ lifestyle.

The inquiry also heard how officers investigating the assault on Pc Pritchard were frustrated in their attempts to access Calocane’s medical notes because of ‘data protection’ rules.

Pc Myers said he was told by psychiatrist Dr Ben Lomas he could not provide Calocane’s details without the suspect’s consent due to patient confidentiality.

Pc Myers said: ‘I have found the idea of asking for a consent form very peculiar.

‘For a suspect to sign a medical consent form, it would be like stopping a car for drink-driving then saying would you mind giving me a breathalyser test, you don’t have to.’

Calocane went on to kill 19-year-olds Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar, and 65-year-old Ian Coates during a stabbing spree in 2023. Three others were left seriously injured.

He had previously been investigated for banging down two flatmates’ doors during a 24-hour period, causing a woman to leap from a first-floor window to escape him, as well as stalking and assaulting a former housemate.

Caretaker Ian Coates, and students Barney Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar were killed by paranoid schizophrenic Calocane in Nottingham nearly three years ago

Yet he had not been convicted of anything by the time he struck.   

Meanwhile, one of Calocane’s former flatmates described how the mature student put him in a headlock after an argument about cleaning the bathroom.

The witness, known only as Christopher, said he grew fed up with Calocane leaving body hair shavings and ‘snot’ in the shower cubicle, so challenged him.

Christopher told the inquiry Calocane refused to sort the mess, and said: ‘What you going to do about it?’

Christopher replied: ‘I will call you a dirty b*stard.’

It was then that Calocane ‘came flying across the room, and threw a punch’, he said.

‘He ended up getting me in a headlock. I was asking him “please let me go”.

‘He wouldn’t let me leave.

‘I remember him looking very intensely at me the whole time and didnt say anything, just kind of stared at me.

‘At that point I was feeling pretty worried.’

Police attended but Calocane was not arrested.

Christopher said he would not take the matter further but wanted Calocane to leave the flat.

However, that did not happen.

Asked to consider Calocane’s future violence, he added: ‘I got lucky and I’m fine.’

He was handed an indefinite hospital order after admitting manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

The inquiry continues.