Family of caretaker killed in Nottingham Attacks to give evidence to inquiry
The family of Ian Coates, who was killed in the Nottingham Attacks in 2023, is due to give evidence in the public inquiry.
Family members of a school caretaker killed by paranoid schizophrenic Valdo Calocane are due to give evidence to the Nottingham Attacks public inquiry.
Ian Coates, 65, was fatally stabbed by Calocane more than an hour after undergraduates Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar, both 19, were killed in the early hours of 13 June 2023.
After stealing Mr Coates’ van, Calocane ran over and seriously injured three pedestrians.
On Tuesday, the caretaker’s partner Elaine Newton and his sons James and Lee Coates are due to give evidence to the public inquiry into the attacks.
The probe heard on Monday that Mr Coates’ body was kept at the crime scene for nearly 15 hours while police were investigating.
Tim Moloney KC, who represents the bereaved families, told the hearing that for more than two hours after the grandfather died, there was no forensic tent and he was covered in blankets.
James and Lee Coates have previously said their father was just a few months away from retiring when he was killed.
Calocane is detained indefinitely in a high-security hospital after prosecutors accepted his not guilty pleas to murder at his sentencing at Nottingham Crown Court in January 2024.
At a previous court hearing, James Coates branded his father’s killer a “selfish monster”, adding: “To have a life taken so horrifically is something you will never come to terms with.”
Addressing Calocane directly, Mr Coates said: “You claim voices told you to kill people. Now listen to me – kill yourself.”
In a statement read outside court, James Coates said the killer had “got away with murder” and criticised the police, Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and NHS over the handling of Calocane.
He said: “The failures from the police, the CPS, the health service have resulted in the murder of my father and these two innocent students.
“The NHS mental health trusts have to be held accountable for their failures along with the police.
“All we can do is hope that in due course some sort of justice will be served.
“This man has made a mockery of the system and he has got away with murder.”
Mr Coates’ sons have previously said their father was a diehard Nottingham Forest fan and was a keen fisherman who took young people from deprived backgrounds fishing to try to deter them from crime.