Nottingham Inquiry told Valdo Calocane had flatmate in headlock a year before attacks
The flatmate said police did not arrest Calocane
Last updated 22 hours ago
A flatmate of Valdo Calocane has told the inquiry into the 2023 Nottingham attacks how the triple killer put him in a headlock and then prevented him from leaving their shared kitchen.
The witness, identified at the inquiry only as Christopher, described the incident in 2022 as distressing and said a police officer was later dismissive and did not arrest Calocane.
Mobile phone footage of paranoid schizophrenic Calocane holding his flatmate in a headlock was shown to the central London inquiry on Thursday, as Christopher gave evidence.
The inquiry has previously heard how Calocane, then a mechanical engineering student at the University of Nottingham, headbutted, punched and swung handcuffs at a police officer on September 3 2021, causing swelling to his face.
The killer went on to fatally stab University of Nottingham undergraduates Barnaby Webber and Grace O'Malley-Kumar, both 19, and grandfather Ian Coates, 65, and attempted to kill three more people in the early hours of June 13 2023.
In his evidence to the inquiry, Christopher said he was attacked by Calocane on January 15 2022 in shared six-room student accommodation in Faraday Road, Nottingham.
The witness said he and others would hear occasional noises from Calocane's room.
"He wasn't ever warm to us," Christopher said.
"The bathroom had been left (by Calocane) in probably the worst state that it had been up to that point.
"I decided that I couldn't shower because of it.
"I said (to Calocane) that this is not fair to other people.
"A few hours later he came into the kitchen so I said to him 'Have you cleaned it up yet?'
"He said 'No, I'm not going to'."
Calocane then came "flying across the room" and threw a punch, Christopher said, adding: "I dodged the punch and then we were wrestling. He ended up getting me in a headlock."
Christopher told the inquiry he then called police but Calocane would not let him leave the flat and stared at him as he waited for officers to arrive.
Asked by counsel to the inquiry if waiting for police with Calocane had felt like a hostage situation, Christopher, who decided not to press charges, said: "It did feel like that at the time because when the assault happened there were two other people in the room.
"It was just me and him at that point and he's staring into my eyes. Yeah, it did feel like that to me."
Christopher was left with a stiff and painful neck and said that after speaking to police who arrived at the scene he was told by an officer that the incident was "going to be common assault".
He told the inquiry: "I felt like it was dismissive in a way. He (the officer) said we can do this thing called restorative justice."
An officer went to speak to Calocane, the witness said, but he did not agree to apologise and "they did not arrest him and nothing happened".
Christopher added: "They asked me if I wanted to pursue it. At that point to be honest I kind of thought it was a waste of time. I just said 'leave it at that'.
"The only thing I wanted was for him to not live in the flat any more."
At the end of his evidence, Christopher said he believed he and others were put at risk because they were not given background information about Calocane's medical history.
"I got lucky and I'm fine," he said.
"Maybe I wouldn't have, but that's where we are."
The inquiry heard on Wednesday how Calocane was charged with assaulting an emergency worker and was summonsed to attend Nottingham Magistrates' Court in September 2022 but he failed to appear.
A warrant for his arrest was issued by the court, but Calocane had not been arrested by police before he committed the attacks in June 2023.
Calocane is currently 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.