The Nottingham Inquiry has heard that police ‘jumped the gun’ to charge triple killer Valdo Calocane
The inquiry has heard that Calocane killed Barnaby Webber, Grace O’Malley-Kumar and Ian Coates in June 2023.
A prosecutor has described how he received an apology from a senior detective after police “jumped the gun” to charge triple killer Valdo Calocane (VC).
Specialist prosecutor Alan Murphy, part of the Crown Prosecution Service’s East Midlands Complex Casework Unit, told the Nottingham attacks public inquiry that it did not make sense that police wanted to “emergency charge” Calocane with six offences.
In evidence to the inquiry on Tuesday, Mr Murphy said he got the impression that officers were under pressure from the press and possibly from victims’ families to “get a charging decision sorted”.
One of the six charges appeared to have been issued by police before his formal charging advice, the experienced prosecutor told the hearing.
Mr Murphy said he had attended a meeting at Nottingham’s Radford Road police station a day after the attacks were carried out on the morning of June 13 2023.
He told the 24th day of the public inquiry: “We discussed the likely timetable for the rest of the week in terms of how long it’s going take the police to get whatever evidence they could get ahead of charging.”
Suspects in serious cases could be held for up to 96 hours before charge, Mr Murphy said, meaning Calocane could have been held without charge until June 17.
He told the hearing: “Even on the Wednesday (a day after the attacks) it was pretty obvious that he was going to be charged with the offences he was charged with.”
Anticipating that Calocane would be charged on Friday afternoon and kept in custody to appear before magistrates on Saturday, Mr Murphy said he had made contact with court staff to make them “aware of what was coming”.
The lawyer added: “At some time, maybe around 3 o’clock (on Friday)… I became aware… that the police were proposing to emergency charge the case.
“Which didn’t make any sense because emergency charging is normally reserved for cases where you’re about to run out of the custody time clock – and that didn’t run out until Saturday morning.
“And I also became aware that the police were suggesting that… I’d given them verbal authorisation to charge, which I hadn’t.”
Mr Murphy said he had formally charged the offences at 3.24pm on June 16 after a colleague had read his draft charging advice and had no issues with it.
Answering questions from counsel to the inquiry Rachel Langdale KC, Mr Murphy said he had received a phone call during the afternoon from now retired Detective Superintendent Leigh Sanders, who “apologised for what had happened” in relation to emergency charging.
The witness said of the emergency charging: “I wasn’t particularly happy about it, but it had been done.
“I then authorised the charges correctly, and looking at the timings when I later got the charge sheets it appeared that one of them had been charged ahead of my formal charging advice.
“So I granted retrospective authority.
“And I within that retrospective authority made it clear that if in fact any of the other five charges were earlier than my official charging advice then my retrospective authority applied to those offences as well.”
Ms Langdale asked Mr Murphy: “When Leigh Sanders phoned you did he say why he had done that?”
Mr Murphy answered: “I got the impression – there was a lot of noise in the background at Leigh Sanders’ end – that the police were under pressure from the press, and possibly from the families, to effectively get a charging decision sorted because he’d been in custody now for the best part of three days.
“It just appeared to be pressure from, as I say, from the press and from the families. I mean, I may be wrong on that. That’s my recollection of that call.”
Ms Langdale continued: “But he had jumped the gun, effectively?”
Mr Murphy answered: “Yes. And he apologised for so doing and obviously I accepted the apology.”
During his evidence, the prosecutor said it was clear in the first few days that mental health issues were going to play a part in the case.
He was also asked about a meeting held on November 23 2023 to discuss whether prosecutors intended to accept pleas to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, in light of the findings of psychiatric reports.
Mr Murphy said: “When I came to my ultimate decisions about the case I was careful always to look for supporting evidence, and not simply rely on what VC was saying to anyone.”
The senior prosecutor was also asked if it would have been better to have meetings with bereaved families before discussions about whether to accept pleas to manslaughter.
Mr Murphy said: “They’re not witnesses in the case. And so they don’t provide evidence in the case that’s going to inform this decision.
“This decision is one for the CPS to make with the benefit of advice from counsel and input from the investigating police officers.
“The purpose of having the meeting on the 23rd was to make the decision so that it could then be imparted to the families on the 24th.”
The inquiry has heard that Calocane, a former mechanical engineering student, fatally stabbed University of Nottingham undergraduates Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar, both 19, on Ilkeston Road, Nottingham, in the early hours of June 13 2023.
He went on to kill grandfather Ian Coates, 65, in the Mapperley Park area around an hour later, stealing his van and using it to run over pedestrians at two locations in Nottingham city centre.
Calocane, who admitted manslaughter and attempted murder, is detained indefinitely in a high-security hospital after prosecutors accepted his not guilty pleas to murder on the grounds of diminished responsibility in January 2024.