A number of murder and manslaughter cases came though the courts during 2024. Here, court reporter Martin Naylor, highlights the major cases he covered. Nottingham attacks killer Valdo Calocane By far and away the most high-profile case of this nature to go through Nottingham Crown Court in 2024 was that of spree killer Valdo Calocane who was handed a hospital order for the killings of university students Barnaby Webber and Grace O'Malley-Kumar and school caretaker Ian Coates.
Mr Webber and Miss O'Malley-Kumar, then both 19, were walking home from an end-of-term night out when they were stabbed repeatedly by Calocane in Ilkeston Road, Radford , in the early hours of June 13, last year. Miss O'Malley-Kumar had tried in vain to save her friend who had been attacked with a dagger . Calocane, 32, went on to kill Huntingdon Academy caretaker Ian Coates, 65, and steal his van.
The defendant, who also identifies as Adam Mendes, then deliberately drove the vehicle into three pedestrians in the city centre in an attempt to kill them before being arrested. The defendant's guilty pleas to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, due to his mental health, were accepted by prosecutors, but thousands of column inches have since been printed about failures by the authorities in the lead up to the deaths and led to well-publicised criticisms from the families of the victims. Speaking on the court steps after the three-day sentencing in January, Emma Webber, mother of victim .