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MUM'S FURY
My son was killed by Nottingham knifeman Valdo Calocane…I’ll never forgive NHS for washing their hands of monster
Mum Emma is calling for a complete restructure of mental health services to prevent similar attacks
THE furious mother of Barnaby Webber has accused the NHS of washing its hands of violent patient Valdo Calocane — leaving him free to kill her teen son and two others.
Emma Webber, 51, spoke out as a string of catastrophic failings emerged in Calocane’s mental health treatment before he launched his devastating stabbing spree last year.
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The killer, 32, was controversially handed a hospital order for manslaughter by diminished responsibility due to his paranoid schizophrenia diagnosis.
A shocking review, released today, into the NHS trust where Calocane was treated prior to the attacks reveals officials missed at least eight chances to stop him killing.
One doctor warned he could kill, three years before the Nottingham attack. Incredibly, the Trust discharged him back to his GP in September 2022.
Nine months later, he killed Nottingham University student Barnaby and his friend Grace O’Malley-Kumar, both 19, plus school caretaker Ian Coates, 65.
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Emma is calling for a complete restructure of mental health services to prevent similar attacks — and wants all those responsible for allowing the triple killings to happen to face the consequences.
She told The Sun: “The mental health services in Nottingham washed their hands of this dangerous individual and left him free to slaughter Barnaby, Grace and Ian.
Barnaby Webber's parents ask why us, what have we done to deserve this? after he was tragically killed by Valdo Calocane
“What we have surmised is the professionals did no proper risk assessment when they discharged Calocane.
"It wouldn’t have taken much looking back in the case files to see he was seriously mentally ill and violent. This attack was always going to happen — it was just a case of when, not if.
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“I think it’s disgusting how these highly educated medical professionals have conducted themselves in the most unprofessional and disgraceful way.
"As a mother who has lost her son, no end of ‘we’re stretched, limited resources, waiting lists’ will ever be an excuse.”
A Care Quality Commission report into Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust found that key details outlining Calocane’s threat to himself and others were omitted from risk assessments.
Emma is certain there are “more Valdo Calocanes out there” and is calling for an urgent review into mental health services.
How many more families and parents have to bear the news that we had to bear on June 13 last year?
Emma Webber
She said: “How many more families and parents have to bear the news that we had to bear on June 13 last year?
“We need to get to the heart of what is going so badly wrong in our communities and analyse why people are carrying out these attacks.”
She told how she “cannot bear the thought” of more needless deaths like the young girls fatally stabbed in Southport last month, or Daniel Anjorin, 14, killed on his way to school in East London in April.
Emma said: “The priority has to be public safety. We can’t have people scared to put their children into holiday clubs, we can’t have parents scared to send their children to university or put them on a bus to go to school.
"What’s more important than ensuring that level of safety for the public? We have a right to life.”
She said the Attorney General told her last week a public inquiry will be held.
There’s a very real risk nobody is going to address our questions properly. They will keep passing the buck. But to my dying breath I won’t let that happen. I can’t do that to my son. We all deserve better. The British public deserves better
Emma Webber
With the families of Grace and Ian, she is demanding a statutory inquiry, led by a judge, so those to blame face accountability.
She warned they “will never accept” a repeat of inquiries where “they apologise for their failings and say lessons will be learned”.
And she said: “There’s a very real risk nobody is going to address our questions properly. They will keep passing the buck. But to my dying breath I won’t let that happen. I can’t do that to my son.
“We all deserve better. The British public deserves better.”
Emma is demanding the clinicians who carried out risk assessments on Calocane before discharging him face consequences.
She said: “The medical decision-makers who failed so badly have to be held to account. Yes, it might be catastrophic for their careers, but it’s not as catastrophic as it is for us.”
To Emma’s shock, the review also found there was an “obvious pattern” of Calocane not taking his meds from the start of his treatment.
Emma said: “There was no assertive management on the NHS’ behalf. The only person asserting anything was Valdo Calocane. The person that was in control all the way along was Valdo Calocane.”
She said his stockpiling of medication raised further doubts about the decision to give him a hospital order.
Emma recalled how a doctor “spent 20 minutes in court” talking about how Calocane could not go to prison as he was resistant to treatment.
She went on: “However, we now know that he wasn’t treatment resistant, he just resisted his treatment. He stockpiled his medication, he lied about taking them, he even went and collected his prescriptions.
"He knew what he was doing. There has been testimony from his current psychiatrist that he is responding to his treatment and his violent tendencies have abated. That is damning.
He knew what he was doing. There has been testimony from his current psychiatrist that he is responding to his treatment and his violent tendencies have abated. That is damning
Emma Webber
“We have always maintained he’s mentally unwell, but he was deemed so unwell he could never go to a prison.
"We are saying this evil, twisted, vicious killer needs to have punishment when the time is right. It is totally unfair that he is a patient and not a prisoner.”
She revealed she felt “sick” reading the report.
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She said: “It was a visceral and genuine shock. I was shaking while reading it. When Barnaby was killed, we knew there would be the most catastrophic grief to try and overcome.
“But never did we think in a heartbeat there would be such gross negligence and failures. Not just in the NHS but everywhere we turned we have not found one person who has done their job properly.”
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