With the publication of the NHS England commissioned report on the NHS treatment of Valdo Calocane there is renewed urgency for the Public Inquiry promised in July 2024 to begin in earnest.
The report, carried out by Theemis Consulting, underlines repeated failures by multiple Government agencies which led to the tragic deaths of Grace O’Malley-Kumar, Barnaby Webber and Ian Coates.
At a Press Conference on Wednesday 5th February, Dr Sanjoy Kumar, father of Grace, said the following on behalf of his family:
Grace was the love of our lives. She was a medical student training to become a doctor in Nottingham University.
As Grace’s family we’ve been failed.
At every intersection that Valdo Calocane had with any authority we were failed.
Leicestershire Police failed to identify and arrest Valdo Calocane.
Nottinghamshire Police failed to execute a warrant for 9 months. They failed in their investigation, they failed in their charge, they failed in their professional standards.
Nottingham Council workers failed.
The Police and Crime Commissioner of the time failed to hold the Nottinghamshire Chief Constable accountable for a failure of professional standards in her force.
It is now confirmed by the Care Quality Commission, the mental health trust, and the NHS Homicide Review that Valdo Calocane was not a treatment resistant schizophrenic. He simply failed to take his medication, and that he was fully culpable for failing to take his medication.
This report published highlights the failures of the mental health trust, but it fails my wife and I as clinicians working in the NHS because it fails to name individuals responsible for the failure to treat Valdo Calocane appropriately.
We will be asking the Secretary of State for Health to order the trust to hold individual doctors responsible, as they knew Valdo Calocane was an evil, violent man. A known risk to the public who did not take his medication.
He was sectioned 4 times. 4 times a psychiatrist failed to change his treatment. 4 times they failed to use depot injectable medication. 4 times they failed to put provisions in the community to make sure he took his medication.
Ultimately irresponsibly discharging him into the community to do harm.
They failed to consider public safety in Nottingham.
This report was meant to be more detailed than the failures found by the Care Quality Commission but it fails, because it does not name the psychiatrist that failed in their duty to treat Valdo Calocane.
A system is made out of individuals. If individuals are not held to account, systems will not change in our country.
As you have seen with failings in other attacks, and ultimately, there will be no positive change.
No change for us, and no change for the community.
For the loss of our beautiful and brave daughter Grace, there must be change.
This is a watershed moment.
We demand a Public Inquiry with statutory powers, powers to compel witness to appear to account for their failures.
With Neil Hudgell, and the legal team from Hudgell Solicitors, we demand accountability. And we will not stop until we get justice for the Nottingham Attacks.
And for all those victims and families like us, who have broken lives because of their absolutely unmeasurable loss.