The Nottingham Inquiry hears that Valdo Calocane charge ‘more understandable as second degree murder’

The prosecution and sentencing of triple killer Valdo Calocane might have been “more understandable” to the victims’ families had the charge been one of second-degree murder instead of manslaughter, an inquiry has heard.

The central London inquiry heard on Wednesday that a March 2024 report had found the CPS’s decision to accept Calocane’s guilty pleas to manslaughter to be correct, adding prosecutors “could not have proceeded on the murder allegations because of the clear and unambiguous findings of the prosecution and defence psychiatric reports that the offender’s actions were because of pure psychosis”.

But the report also pointed to a recommendation made in the 2006 Law Commission report that the current two-tier structure of homicide law – namely murder and manslaughter – should be changed to a three-tier structure that includes second degree murder, the inquiry was told.

Anthony Rogers, the chief inspector at His Majesty’s Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate (HMCPSI), told the Nottingham Inquiry on Wednesday that manslaughter was “a very difficult legal concept for ordinary people outside of the system to understand”.

“It would have possibly been more understandable and a little bit more – ‘acceptable’ is the wrong word, but it is the word I am going to use – if it had been second degree murder, not manslaughter,” he said.

“It’s very difficult, I think, for anybody to accept in the circumstances of this case that their loved ones have been killed by someone and it’s a manslaughter.

“You know, that word ‘murder’ is something that’s very important to people.”

When asked by Julian Blake KC, counsel for the inquiry, if the HMCPSI “considers that the law should change”, Mr Rogers replied: “It’s not a matter for HMCPSI.

“It’s a matter for Parliament whether they adopt this.”

Paranoid schizophrenic Calocane fatally stabbed 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.

He later admitted manslaughter and attempted murder, and was sentenced to an indefinite hospital order in January 2024 after prosecutors accepted his not guilty pleas to murder on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

The decision was widely criticised by bereaved families, who called diminished responsibility laws “archaic” and insisted that they believed Calocane was a murderer – despite the Court of Appeal refusing to change Calocane’s sentence in May 2024.

Tim Moloney KC, who represents the families of Mr Webber, Ms O’Malley-Kumar and Mr Coates, asked Mr Rogers on Wednesday if he had felt concerned about the “relationship between the families and the CPS” during the course of the investigation and prosecution of Calocane.

Mr Rogers replied: “It was clear that the CPS had tried their best to engage, inform, console, speak to families throughout, and it was quite obvious, as part of this inspection, that there were different expectations and understanding of a lot of issues.”

A second degree murder charge would refer to a killing where the offender intended to do serious injury and was aware of a serious risk of causing death, according to the 2024 HMCPSI report.

A second degree murder conviction would also attract a discretionary life sentence.

The inquiry also heard on Wednesday afternoon from Dr Tuhina Lloyd, who was Calocane’s community consultant at the Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust’s Early Intervention in Psychosis (EIP) service.

She told the inquiry that her team had come to feel “completely redundant” when the decision was taken in September 2022 to discharge Calocane from the mental health service to the GP.

“We had tried over a nine-month period to engage VC (Valdo Calocane), and we had failed,” she said.

She described how Calocane missed around nine appointments with her and had told the inpatient team he felt “persecuted” by the EIP service – but she could not trigger an assessment under the Mental Health Act because he still did not meet the threshold for it.

“We had absolutely no powers to get him to come to appointments, we have no powers to get him to take his treatment,” Dr Lloyd said.

The inquiry continues.

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