The heartbroken mother of stabbing victim Grace O’Malley Kumar has called for mandatory jail for anyone caught carrying a knife.
Aspiring doctor Grace, 19, was killed by Valdo Calocane in Nottingham while heroically trying to protect her university friend Barnaby Webber just after 4am on June 13 last year.
Her mother Sinead said a ‘massive deterrent’ must be put in place to stop people using knives, calling on the government to ‘urgently’ look into the issue.
Breaking down in tears during an emotional interview with BBC Breakfast, Sinead said that carrying a knife is ‘no different’ to carrying a gun.
‘I believe there has to be mandatory prison sentences for carrying a knife,’ she said.
‘It is not just an offensive weapon or something you could eat your food with. It is a lethal weapon.’
It comes as police today admitted they ‘should have done more’ to stop triple killer Calocane before he went on the stabbing rampage that also killed 19-year-old student Barnaby, as well as school caretaker Ian Coates.
Grace O’Malley Kumar, 19, was killed by Valdo Calocane in Nottingham while trying to protect her university friend Barnaby Webber
Grace’s parents have called for stricter legislation on carrying knives in England
Valdo Calocane stabbed three people to death in the early hours of the morning on June 13
Grace’s mother Sinead said a ‘massive deterrent’ must be put in place to stop people using knives, calling on the government to ‘urgently’ look into the issue
Grace’s father Dr Sanjoy Kumar described knife crime in England as an ‘epidemic’ and said the current legislation on the problem appears ‘easy-going’.
‘Every day it seems there is a story about someone being stabbed to death and it feels like nothing is being done about it,’ he said.
Grace’s teenage brother James echoed his parents calls, saying it seems ‘easier to get access to a knife than alcohol’.
Calocane, a graduate engineering student, was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia when he ‘deliberately and mercilessly’ stabbed Barnaby, Grace and Ian in the early hours of the morning last June.
Calocane – who has pleaded guilty to three counts of manslaughter and three of attempted murder after hitting three pedestrians with a van – was ‘unlawfully at large’ at the time of the stabbings and wanted for assaulting an emergency worker.
Nottingham Crown Court today heard from psychiatrists who discussed Calocane’s mental state, with one telling the packed courtroom the 32-year-old heard voices telling him he needed to kill people or his family would be hurt.
Calocane’s barrister also told the court the defendant visited MI5’s London headquarters on May 31, 2021 – around two years before his rampage – and asked them to stop ‘controlling him’.
‘That’s not a concoction by him,’ he told Nottingham Crown Court. ‘There is a photograph taken by their systems at Thames House, saying ”please arrest me” – effectively ”stop controlling me”.’
Dr Nigel Blackwood, professor of forensic psychiatry at King’s College, said Calocane believed he was ‘subject to interference by malign forces’ in the lead-up to the killings.
‘He continued to believe that this was not, in his words, a natural illness, but that he was subject to interference by malign forces,’ the expert witness said. ‘He concealed symptoms from his (mental health) team, he evaded their care and he did not trust them.’
Asked to comment on whether Calocane was still hearing voices due to his illness, Dr Blackwood added: ‘I understand that they have reduced in intensity and frequency… but they are still there.’
The court was also told Calocane believed he was controlled by radio and sonic control, subjects which he studied during his degree course at Nottingham University.
Barnaby Webber, from Taunton in Somerset, was a keen cricketer and ‘an extraordinary ‘ordinary’ person’, his family said after he was one of three stabbed to death
Grace, a hockey player, was described by her family as being ‘loved endlessly by all’ and ‘resilient and wise beyond her years’
Calocane went on to kill school caretaker Ian Coates, 65, later the same morning last June
Dr Blackwood told the court that, in discussions, Calocane has noted he carried out a ‘horrific’ crime and was ‘deeply sorry’, but wanted people to know he had been a ‘targeted individual’ by ‘malign forces’ since 2019.
He said the killer has shown a ‘profound lack of awareness’ that he has a serious mental health condition that he will have ‘until his dying day’, whatever treatment is provided to him.
At the time of his attack on Barnaby, Grace and Ian, Calocane was ‘in the grip of a ‘severe psychotic episode’, he told the court.
Dr Blackwood continued: ‘As a result, he has lost sight of others’ humanity and their right to life – he is entirely driven by the psychotic process at the time. The assaults would not have occurred in the absence of his psychosis.’
Despite his paranoid schizophrenia, which caused an ‘abnormality of mental function’, Dr Blackwood said Calocane knew at the time that what he was doing was ‘morally and legally wrong’, which led him to rule out a potential defence of insanity.
He said of Calocane: ‘He has shown a profound lack of insight into the fact that he has an illness.
‘Were he to stop taking medication in prison, there is a significant risk of lethal behaviours returning, whether against prison officers or fellow inmates. That is my significant concern about hybrid orders in this matter.’
Dr Blackwood said, in discussions, Calocane has noted he carried out a ‘horrific’ crime and was ‘deeply sorry’, but wanted people to know he had been a ‘targeted individual’ by ‘malign forces’ since 2019.
Prosecutor Karim Khalil KC said: ‘He said he was deeply sorry for the crime and for the families’ loss of their loved ones. He said, quote ‘they needed justice, without that grief will never heal’.
‘He said he now could not imagine doing such a thing but was keen to ensure people knew he was a targeted individual and suffered torture from technology.’
Dr Blackwood said: ‘Yes, he says he has been interfered with since 2019 and heard voices, both within his head and also as if they are in outside external spaces.’
Mr Khalil said the judge faces a ‘stark choice’ of imposing a ‘hybrid’ life sentence with a hospital direction on Calocane or a hospital order under the Mental Health Act.
He said Calocane, who is currently a patient at the Ashworth high security psychiatric hospital on Merseyside, had been assessed by three experts, who agreed that he was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia when he stabbed to death three victims.
Dr Blackwood was asked by Mr Joyce: ‘He is so ill that in truth your best estimate/conclusion at the moment is that he will never be well enough to be released?’
Dr Blackwood answered: ‘I think it overwhelmingly likely that he will spend very many years of his life in secure psychiatric care.’
At his sentencing hearing today, defence barrister Peter Joyce KC said his client had once visited MI5’s London headquarters (pictured) and asked them to stop ‘controlling him’
Barnaby’s family – including parents David and Emma (left ) – arrive at Nottingham Crown Court for today’s sentencing hearing
Grace O’Malley-Kumar’s mother, Sinead, (left) and his father, Dr Sanjoy Kumar (middle)
James (centre), Grace’s brother, arrives at Nottingham Crown Court today
Another psychiatrist, Dr Leo McSweeney, told the court: ‘I think that (Calocane) is going to remain detained for decades to come. I can’t envisage his release without intensive post-release management.’
Accepting that abnormality of mind contributed to Calocane committing the offences, Mr Khalil told Mr Justice Turner: ‘Although (Calocane’s) responsibility has been diminished it has not been extinguished.
‘The intention of violence on his part appears to have subsisted for a considerable period of time. By the evening of the 12th of June at least, he had already formed the settled intention to kill.’
Mr Khalil said Calocane ‘knew what he was about to do’ as he waited in the shadows to attack Barnaby and Grace.
During submissions about psychiatric evidence being considered by the court, Mr Khalil said: ‘He hid, as we know, in the shadows.
‘What he did was wait in the shadows until the two students walked past, and he followed them from behind.
‘He plainly knew what he was about to do.’
Prior to the fatal stabbing of van driver Ian Coates, Mr Khalil said, Calocane had caused the 65-year-old ‘to come from his vehicle’ to be attacked.
‘It is plain he conducted himself in a purposeful way,’ the Crown’s barrister added. ‘It is clear that his dangerousness is heightened by virtue of his ability to diminish or conceal that which he is actually doing.’
In a video taken inside the flat at Madison Court, Raleigh Park, Nottingham in January 2022, Calocane can be seen holding a flatmate in a headlock
Offering mitigation, defence barrister Peter Joyce urged the judge not to consider a whole-life order.
Mr Joyce said: ‘There are very few whole-life orders and they have all, without exception, been for offences of murder.
‘This man is not before you for murder, he is before you for manslaughter.’
The KC added: ‘Schizophrenia is a well-established, long-established mental disease that can strike anyone and will strike 1% of the population through no fault of their own.
‘The clearest evidence in this case is available… it (the mental illness) started in late 2019 and he was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic in May 2020.
‘No fabrication, no exaggeration, no concoction – this unwanted visitor to his life hit him. That’s the fact.’
Mr Joyce said schizophrenia had ‘stalked down’ a man of previously impeccable character and behaviour.
‘It’s the fact that you have now before you a list of psychiatric episodes that he endured over years and years,’ he said.
Pointing out that the initial diagnosis of schizophrenia was made two years before the Nottingham killings, Mr Joyce said: ‘Any pretence that he is not ill is wrong.’
The defence barrister went on to describe Calocane as ‘a man who prior to being smitten’ by mental illness ‘was wholly law-abiding, was hard-working, put himself through university and was doing his very, very best to become a meaningful member of society.’
Pictured this morning in Nottingham are Barnaby’s, David and Emma
An undated photograph issued by Nottinghamshire Police of (from left) Grace O’Malley-Kumar, her father Dr Sanjoy Kumar, her mother Sinead and her brother James
Barnaby, second left, with his father David Webber, left, mother Emma and brother Charlie
He added: ‘By the time June 2023 came around he had been wanted on warrant in this very city for nine months, for the assault of a police officer.
‘And what was the police officer doing when he was arrested? He was trying to detain him under the Mental Health Act.’
Mr Joyce said of Calocane’s arrest after assaulting an emergency worker: ‘What clearer demonstration could you have that this man was by then seriously mentally unwell?
‘He should not have been on the streets of Nottingham but the fact he was is not his fault.
‘The man who was on the streets of Nottingham is a man who was gravely and seriously mentally ill.
‘His case is essentially very simple: ”I was ordered to do this by the voices in my head”, and any fair analysis of him says that that is right.’
Summarising the evidence of three psychiatrists, Mr Joyce added: ‘What they are saying is this: but for that dreadful illness, he would not have done any of these things.’
Mr Joyce went on: ‘Since the witch trials went, people are punished because their guilty mind goes with their acts.
‘Here is a man who reached his mid-20s without offending anybody but this disease destroyed him.’
Grace’s father, Dr Sanjoy Kumar, told Good Morning Britain that he should not be ‘able to walk around in society’
Grace’s teenage brother James added that the killer had ‘ruined the rest of my life’
The families of Calocane’s victims have told of the devastation caused by his crimes.
Speaking at Calocane’s sentencing hearing, Barnaby’s brother Charlie hailed his sibling’s bravery and described the shattering impact of his death.
‘When I was younger, he was always the person I went to if I was scared of something or had a tough decision to make,’ he said. ‘When I first learned what happened I wanted to set the world on fire, I was so angry at everyone.
‘He was my hero. He didn’t just die a hero to the world, but he was a hero to me. On June 13 2023, you didn’t just take my brother from me and from those around me, but you also took a large part of me from myself.’
Ms O’Malley-Kumar’s grief-stricken brother James said today that he has been left ‘completely lost’ without his sister, adding that he confided in her about everything.
He told Sky News: ‘I haven’t had my best friend to go to. I haven’t had an older sister to call.
‘She hasn’t been there to pick up the phone to me and all I can do now is take comfort in the slightest thing – I sleep with her university hockey top on my pillow and I wear her clothes.
Meanwhile, her heartbroken parents said they thought her phone had just run out of battery when they tried getting in touch with her after hearing of a terrorist attack in Nottingham.
Her father Dr Sanjoy Kumar told BBC Breakfast: ‘I was at work and Sinead texted me when she first heard the news in the morning.
Grace’s family said they were ‘immensely proud of her bravery’ as she tried to save her friend in the attack
‘Immediately, just being a dad, I rang Grace’s phone. I remember I rang it at least eight times and it just rang out.’
Breaking down in tears, Grace’s mother Sinead added: ‘We thought nothing of it, maybe her phone had run out of battery. We really didn’t believe it for a moment that it could have been – it said a man and a woman and we thought these are just kids.’
During the emotional interview, Dr Kumar said: ‘The fact that I will not see her graduate, the fact that I will not see her marry, the fact that I will not see grandchildren, is brutal.’
He added: ‘She was the best. She was the glue that held the family together.’
Sinead said: ‘I miss her so much. She was my little friend, she was my pet, I’m literally dizzy with grief, and it’s the same every day.
‘She was a beautiful child. We were incredibly proud of her. She was such a great athlete, she was a cricketer, hockey player, and she had so much fun doing that. She was such a lovely girl.’
Grace’s little brother James also broke down in tears, adding: ‘She was the best to me. Since everything’s happened in June I’ve been completely lost without her. I’ve not just lost my older sister but a best friend – someone I’d go to about everything.
‘I’d call her if there were any problems I had, any concerns, she was the first person I’d go to. Because it was Grace she’d come back with the best advice.’
But Grace’s father Dr Kumar slammed the decision not to put the killer on trial for murder and said: ‘Justice has not been done.’
Barnaby’s father David embraces Grace’s mother at the vigil at the University of Nottingham
Hockey team mates of victim Grace O’Malley Kumar lay flowers in her memory during a vigil at the University of Nottingham
Police previously released this CCTV image showing Calocane
He told ITV that he should not be ‘able to walk around in society. You can’t have someone like this who is around children, around the elderly, around vulnerable people.’
Grace’s brother James added: ‘Someone who has ruined families, ultimately. To be honest it has ruined the rest of my life.’
It comes after it was revealed a litany of missed chances left Calocane free to roam the city before he knifed three people to death and tried to kill three more.
The triple killer had been in and out of a mental health hospital for more than three years and a warrant was out for his arrest when his killing spree brought terror to Nottingham.
The NHS, police, university officials and even his employer missed at least eight opportunities to deal with him before he ‘brutally and mercilessly’ killed university students Barnaby and Grace.
A court heard he then ‘calmly’ walked across the city to kill school caretaker Mr Coates, 65, as he travelled to work.
Flatmates described Calocane as a ‘ticking timebomb’ and nicknamed him ‘serial killer’ due to the loner’s unstable nature.
As a court accepted his guilty plea to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility yesterday, it emerged his disturbing behaviour had seen him sectioned at least four times. Yet he was continually released into the community – where he stopped taking his medication and posed an increasing danger.
Calocane had also been wanted by police, for attacking an officer, for almost a year by the time of the killings last June.
One woman was so terrified after being followed into her university accommodation she jumped out a window to escape. She was badly injured and needed surgery, while Calocane was eventually sectioned.
The woman’s mother was said to be so concerned she is believed to have contacted Nottingham University about Calocane, but he was allowed to continue his mechanical engineering studies.
Another incident saw Calocane assault and then trap a flatmate in their kitchen in a row over a dirty shower. It was last night claimed the university had urged police not to charge Calocane over the matter, and he was moved out of the accommodation.
The university declined to comment on the ongoing case.
It is also understood he attacked two colleagues at the warehouse where he worked, and was banned from the premises. Calocane’s defence barrister, Peter Joyce, KC, said his client had been taken to mental health facilities by police several times due to his ‘bizarre, dangerous behaviour’, adding: ‘He ought to have been under the eye of mental health services.’
Calocane was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia three years before his rampage, which also saw him mow down three pedestrians with a van he stole from Mr Coates.
In heartbreaking victim impact statements, relatives of the three victims broke off to address the defendant directly as he sat in the dock at Nottingham Crown Court.
One of Mr Coates’s sons, James, branded Calocane a ‘selfish monster’, and told him: ‘You claim voices told you to kill people. Now listen to me – kill yourself.’
The life Calocane and the lives of his victims were all destroyed by the 32-year-old’s mental illness, which ‘stalked him down’ more than three years before he stabbed three people, a court heard today.
Calocane, formerly of Forest Fields, Nottingham, is expected to be sentenced on Thursday at the city’s Crown Court for the manslaughter of students Barnaby and Grace and school caretaker Ian.
He has also admitted three counts of attempted murder relating to pedestrians he targeted in Nottingham city centre in the early hours of June 13 last year.