Nottingham attacks: One year after murders, victims’ families ‘filled with anger’ fight for ‘lasting change’ | UK news

On the one-year anniversary of the attacks, the three families said they would take time to remember their “beloved family members” while continuing their “tireless pursuit of appropriate justice.”

The families of the Nottingham attack victims said they were “filled with anger” as they continued to fight for “lasting change” a year after the killings.

Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar, both 19 years old, were repeatedly stabbed by Valdo Calocane as they went home after a night of drinking to celebrate the end of their exams.

The 32-year-old also stabbed 65-year-old school caretaker Ian Coates as he was on his way to work at Huntingdon Academy in the early hours of June 13, 2023.

The Webber, Coates and O’Malley-Kumar families will attend a memorial service in Nottingham today and relatives will walk along Ilkeston Road and lay flowers where Barnaby and Grace died.

In a joint statement marking the one-year anniversary of the attacks, the three families said they would take time to remember their “beloved family members” while continuing their “relentless pursuit of appropriate justice.”

“We will continue our relentless pursuit of appropriate justice, individual and organizational accountability, lasting changes in our society, and laws that provide better protection and public safety, appropriate punishment for crimes, and improved support for victims and their families,” the statement said.

“As three families, we are united in our grief and loss, but also in our anger at the scale of the failings: poor police work, weak law enforcement, dereliction of duty in medical care, and a series of catastrophic missed opportunities that could and should have prevented these entirely preventable deaths.”

It concluded: “We will leave no stone unturned in our search for answers, no matter how long it takes.”

Since the attacks, the three families have strongly criticised Nottinghamshire Police and the Nottinghamshire Healthcare Foundation Trust after revealed that Calocane had previously been detained in hospital four timesand an arrest warrant had been issued against him months before the murders.

At the beginning of the year, Health and Social Care Minister Victoria Atkins said ordered a special review of the NHS Trust with the aim of providing families with further answers and focusing on wider issues surrounding mental health care in Nottinghamshire.

Similarly, Nottinghamshire Police were asked in March to “urgently develop an improvement plan” after in special measures following the processing of the case.

Leicestershire Police is also being investigated by the Independent Office of Police Conduct for contact with the attacker.

Last monthEmma Webber, Barnaby’s mother, said it would be her family’s “life sentence” to ensure Calocane is never released after the attacker was sentenced to indefinite hospital order in January.

He pleaded guilty to three counts of manslaughter due to diminished responsibility.

The families tried to appeal the verdict, but the Court of Appeal ruled in May that the verdict “not overly lenient” given the medical evidence that showed Calocane was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia.