AS a tale of two brothers, it is a compelling but utterly tragic one.
Elias Calocane is an articulate, softly spoken young man who went to Cambridge University and has a bright future ahead of him.
But despite sharing the same mother and upbringing, his older brother Valdo developed serious mental health issues that in 2020 prompted a psychiatrist to write that he “might end up killing someone”.
Yet inexplicably, he was released in to an unsuspecting community and, three years later, stabbed Barnaby Webber, Grace O’Malley-Kumar and Ian Coates to death on the streets of Nottingham.
All of whom would undoubtedly be alive today had their mentally-ill attacker been contained (and effectively treated) on the numerous occasions his behaviour and actions brought him in to contact with the police and the NHS.
Instead, the families of Barnaby, Grace and Ian have been devastated by a needless loss and will no doubt feel tormented by “if onlys” for the rest of their lives.
This week, Valdo’s mother Celeste and brother Elias took the unusual and commendable step of going public with his medical history to help highlight the critical state of mental health services in this country.
Their interview with BBC’s Panorama coincided with the release of a damning report in to the actions (or lack of) Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust and highlighted the string of failings that led to his killing spree.
Not least letting him leave hospital four times, despite a history of failing to take his medication, and not having a risk assessment or treatment plan in place.
It beggars belief, but this is not an epic failure isolated to NHFT alone.
It is systemic across the country.
Calocane was an extreme case because he took the lives of others, and it remains to be seen whether mental health issues have any connection to more recent well-publicised attacks.
But these cases aside, there are stories nationwide of families struggling to cope with a mentally ill loved one while the state fails to provide any help.
Rather than a proactive approach, the overriding sentiment seems to be a reactive, “call us when something terrible happens, but otherwise you’re on your own”.
In other words, anyone with serious mental health issues has either to harm themselves or others before the authorities spring in to action.
Then, chances are, once the immediate danger has passed, they are released without any treatment plan until the next incident takes place.
During a phone-in with LBC radio’s James O’Brien yesterday, a succession of callers spoke of their terrible experiences — one being Mary Lucas, whose 28-year-old daughter Lily, a schizophrenic, died from cardiac arrest following multiple “gross failures” while supposedly being cared for at a hospital near Bristol.
Mary alleged that, prior to her daughter’s hospitalisation, there was no therapy, no counselling and no support other than “filling her full of drugs and sending her home”.
Another woman rang in to speak about her son who became psychotic from “skunk” and cocaine use and went rampaging around their village “with knives” to find the people he imagined were talking about him.
The connection between the regular use of heavy duty skunk and violent psychosis isn’t talked about enough, but that’s a column for another day.
His mother was promised that a mental health team would help him, but no one turned up.
In the end, it was the actions of the local GP, the support of the village and a kindly neighbour who gave him work that set her son on the path to recovery.
That was 17 years ago and he now lives a “rewarding” life in Australia with a good job and a family of his own.
On the Government’s website, there is a blog titled “How we are supporting mental health services in England” that was published in June last year.
It now has a warning in blue at the very top: “This blog post was published under the 2015-2024 Conservative Administration.”
What the Labour administration plans to do about the dire state of mental health services in this country is a plan in progress.
But let’s pray it works.
IT has emerged that Hollywood star Elizabeth Taylor wrote to a movie director when she was just 12 years old to apologise for diva behaviour.
She promised him: “I’ll never do it again.”
Fifty years later, on her final film The Flintstones, she informed the producer that she wished to receive daily gifts (“I like Cartier, darling”) and they built “lavender stairs” up to her trailer.
So it’s fair to assume that she did.
FORMER Match Of The Day host Des Lynam reckons female pundits are unqualified to analyse men’s football matches.
“You have to have played it at the level you are talking about – i.e. the men’s game,” he says.
Seriously? So, despite the Lionesses winning the Euros (something the men have yet to achieve) in 2022 and reaching the World Cup final the following year, he’s saying that none of them are equipped to give an opinion on a men’s match?
Bilge. The Lionesses have great ball skill and know tactics. What else do you need?
Meanwhile, God knows what 81-year-old Des thinks about restaurant critics who opine on the merits of the latest Michelin-starred chef while themselves being barely able to cook baked beans on toast.
GLADIATOR star Russell Crowe says he now resembles “a really weird-looking fish”.
Matters were not helped when he had to shave his beard for his latest role as Nazi war criminal Hermann Goring in the movie Nuremberg.
But, of course, not being a sex god any more will harm Russell’s career not one jot.
In fact, he’ll be inundated with lead roles of enviable gravitas.
While most female movie stars of “a certain age” still have to hope they make a sequel to Driving Miss Daisy.
IF “jihadi bride” Shamima Begum had stayed under the radar while applying to return to Britain, chances are she would be back here by now, hanging out on the local high street with her mates and listening to Taylor Swift.
But when she went public, she became a political hot potato.
Begum, who was just 15 when she left the UK to marry an IS fighter, has lost three babies to malnutrition and remains “stateless”.
As a country that prides itself on following the rule of law, surely politics should take a back seat and let her return here to face her fate in court?
A LETTER uncovered by researchers at the History of Parliament Trust suggests that Oliver Cromwell threw wine, cushions and “custards” at the women in attendance at his son Henry’s wedding.
Four years later, at his daughter Frances’s nuptials, he reportedly “threw about sack Posset” (warm wine mixed with cream) at female guests and daubed their chairs with sweetmeats.
Like a 17th-century Jeremy Beadle, then.
Every wedding has a wacky relative who disgraces themselves.
But Cromwell later became this country’s Lord Protector, who closed the pubs and cancelled Christmas.
Pah, hypocrite.
BELIEVE it or not, two out of five people surveyed are happy to share a bath with their dog (and presumably any potential fleas).
While 36 per cent are happy for them to eat from their fork and the same number would kiss them on the mouth.
The same mouth that, minutes earlier, had no doubt been to the local park and sniffed the excrement of another hound as it if it was a fine wine.
Yuck. No thanks.
