A man who went on to kill three people grew more violent as mental health services failed to ensure he took medication for his psychosis, a damning report has revealed. Valdo Calocane stabbed to death students Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar, both 19, as they returned from a night out last June, before killing Ian Coates, 65. He pleaded guilty this year to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
The final part of a Care Quality Commission (CQC) review into the care of Calocane by Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust (NHFT) found risk assessments played down his refusal to take his medication and his persistent symptoms of psychosis. The Department for Health and Social Care confirmed the government will launch a judge-led inquiry into failings in the lead-up to the killings. Calocane’s victims’ families said in a statement that the NHS trust and individual health professionals “have blood on their hands” after the report laid out “gross, systematic failures”.
“Clinicians involved at every stage of Calocane’s care must bear a heavy burden of responsibility for their failures and poor decision-making,” they said. “Sadly, this is the first of what we expect to be a series of damning reports concerning failures by public bodies in the lead up to the killings of our loved ones, and beyond. We were failed by multiple organisations pre and post, 13 June 2023.
” They added: “Alarmingly, there seems to be little or no accou.