Discharging Valdo Calocane to GP was 'never a good plan', inquiry hears
The inquiry continues
A doctor said an NHS trust’s decision to discharge a schizophrenic killer to his GP months before he went on a violent rampage was “never a good plan”, a public inquiry has heard.
Valdo Calocane was discharged by Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust (NHFT) in September 2022, nine months before the fatal attacks, which was later criticised in a report by the Care Quality Commission.
The triple killer was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in 2020, was detained under mental health laws four times, and claimed that voices he heard got him into “trouble”.
In June 2023, Calocane killed University of Nottingham students Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar, both 19, and caretaker Ian Coates, 65, before running over three pedestrians with a van.
Dr John Milton, a consultant forensic psychiatrist, assessed Calocane at HMP Manchester in August 2023 to decide whether he should be moved to a high-security hospital.
In an email written by Dr Milton, he says references to Calocane’s notes from NHFT suggest he was discharged to his GP “due to non-engagement”.
He added in the email: “Never a good plan and likely to be a criticism for the trust to face.”
When asked about this comment on Thursday at the inquiry in central London, Dr Milton said: “I was just recognising someone who’d apparently had several psychiatric admissions shouldn’t be lost to follow up.
“There may well be a procedure where you, after a period of non-engagement, despite how hard you try… that may be the reason you just have to discharge people.
“In my experience, you would persist because it would be likely on the basis of his relapsing condition that he would have further episodes of psychosis.”
A statement from consultant forensic psychiatrist Dr Kripa Ullal, who assessed Calocane’s mental health on three occasions in prison, said the killer was “smiling incongruently” on her first visit and responded “no comment” when asked about hearing voices.
Writing about a separate assessment of Calocane, Dr Ullal said: “I further probed into his description of psychosis and asked whether he had ever heard voices. After thinking for a while, he acknowledged that he was hearing voices.
“He said he started hearing voices in 2020. Mainly male voices. He described hearing them all the time, including at the time of assessment.
“When I asked what happened when he started hearing voices, he stated ‘got into trouble’.”
Among documents found in Calocane’s prison cell was a letter which said he wanted to change his legal team.
The inquiry heard he wrote: “I have a few concerns about the relationship with the current team. The first choice was made with limited time and information.”
He continued: “There have been what I thought to be crucial periods when the team was unreachable and thus we were unable to have productive discussions about some of my concerns.”
In another six-page document, Calocane wrote about voices he could hear and that he “became suspicious of being monitored again”.
A social worker at high-security facility Rampton Hospital, in Nottinghamshire, Emily Doherty, said that when she spoke to Calocane in August 2023, he became “paranoid” because she had read his letters.
She said: “I probed him a little bit about some of the letters that had been found in his cell and his demeanour shifted rapidly.
“He went from coming across as open, both verbally and non-verbally, to having a bit more of a fixed stare. He became very defensive and paranoid about me having read those letters and who could possibly have had access to them.”
Ms Doherty said Calocane seemed to “disregard” the attacks on June 13.
She said: “He didn’t sort of acknowledge it as being something that was quite a serious charge against him that could have subsequent consequences for the rest of his life.”
The inquiry heard that Calocane’s mother told Ms Doherty that he had been bullied at school in Portugal and the UK when they lived in a “predominantly white community”.
The inquiry continues.