UK - 3 people found dead on the streets of Nottingham 13 June 2023 ‘Arrest’

[AliceInPain]

The graduate accused of murdering three people during a knife rampage in Nottingham 'used to sit out the back of his house with his top off, smoking and drinking', according to a neighbour - as it emerged he was looking for a job.
Valdo Calocane, who is understood to be from Guinea-Bissau, West Africa, graduated from the University of Nottingham with a degree in mechanical engineering last summer.
On a jobs website, the 31-year-old described himself as having a 'strong interest in dynamics analysis, modelling and big data analytics' as well as computer programming. The profile said he was seeking full-time employment.
While he was studying, he lived a stone's throw from the stretch of Ilkeston Road where the 19-year-old victims died in the early hours of Tuesday.
Neighbour Kamran Kahn, 41, said Calocane used to spend time with an ex partner at a house on Ilkeston Road that was raided by armed officers earlier this week.

I think it's sad. My oldest had a really clever mind and lots of creativity, he played the guitar at The Roundhouse, had a good job and was going places then boom, he can't even mop the floor anymore.
Mechanical engineering is not for the average person.
This sounds like a bright mind going poof due to just mental issues, or drugs, we'll find out soon I hope.

 

[Sarahlou]

Police have charged a man with three counts of murder following the attacks in Nottingham which left three dead.
Valdo Calocane, aged 31, of no fixed address, is also charged with three counts of attempted murder.

He will appear at Nottingham Magistrates’ Court on Saturday.

Man charged with murder after brutal knife attack in Nottingham – latest

Nottingham knife attack: Latest news and live updates as victim’s families and city reacts to stabbings

www.independent.co.uk

 

[Skigh]

If he had been suspected as suffering from a mental illness at the time of the attacks would the police have been allowed to interview and subsequently charge him? Would he not have been sent to hospital for further tests and assessments?

 

[Skigh]

Pictured: Nottingham triple murder suspect inside his university halls

Valdo Calocane, 31, was today charged with murdering 19-year-old students Barnaby Webber and Grace O'Malley-Kumar, and school caretaker Ian Coates.

www.dailymail.co.uk

This is the first photograph of the Nottingham triple murder suspect - snapped when he shared a student flat in the city last year.

Valdo Calocane, 31, was today charged with murdering 19-year-old students Barnaby Webber and Grace O'Malley-Kumar, and school caretaker Ian Coates, 65. They were stabbed to death in Nottingham on Tuesday morning.

He has also been charged with three counts of attempted murder after allegedly driving Mr Coates' van into three pedestrians later that morning. One of them was left critically injured but is now stable.

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 during horseplay.

The former flatmate, a 21-year-old business management student at the University of Nottingham, said Calocane - a mature mechanical engineering student at the same university - did not mix well with his contemporaries, who were all much younger.

 

[RosalindaA]

Pictured: Nottingham triple murder suspect inside his university halls

Valdo Calocane, 31, was today charged with murdering 19-year-old students Barnaby Webber and Grace O'Malley-Kumar, and school caretaker Ian Coates.

www.dailymail.co.uk

Yes, very telling article, these flatmates are lucky to be alive as is the former girlfriend. To me the difficulty with appropriate social interactions, lost in thought, and now in the charging documents, being of ""no fixed abode" suggests maybe people were pulling away from the suspect and starting to recognize danger.
I think we may be looking at possible psychopathy here rather than mental illness as again, the suspect did manage to complete a degree in a challenging discipline, at the same time as these incidences were occurring. So his brain was not generally disordered, as in schizophrenia for example and there was a certain amount of control over his behaviour.
I think his internet history will be interesting.
As to charging him, I think the police and the Crown usually go ahead according to the evidence of the criminal acts, a defense counsel could then argue an insanity defence but the bar for this is rightly, very high and would require a large amount of medical evidence of mental illness. Unlikely to fly in this case, I would think, due to the obvious ( to me), planned nature of these murders.

 

[Lucy6226]

If he had been suspected as suffering from a mental illness at the time of the attacks would the police have been allowed to interview and subsequently charge him? Would he not have been sent to hospital for further tests and assessments?

Possible they interviewed and charged after medication was given moo

 

[Skigh]

EXCLUSIVE Nottingham victim Grace 'died a hero' trying to save Barnaby

EXCLUSIVE Grace O'Malley-Kumar (left), 19, had the opportunity to flee the attack after her friend Barnaby Webber (right), also 19, was stabbed from behind by a figure dressed in black on Tuesday.

www.dailymail.co.uk

Medical student Grace, who had played hockey for the England U18 and U16 sides, was walking home from PRYZM nightclub in the city with fellow University of Nottingham undergraduate Barney when they were approached from behind, a woman who lives close to the murder scene said.

The resident said her home security camera captured the horrific incident and described how Grace 'tried to save' him.

She said: 'The boy and the girl were walking on their own, there was nobody else in the picture except the attacker, who came up from behind.

'He attacked the boy first – the girl had an opportunity to run away. But she didn't, she tried to get the man off her friend. She tried to save the boy.

'They were just walking home from PRYZM after a night out, like young people do.'

Her husband said the couple have been taking medication to help them sleep since watching the footage, now in the custody of police, adding: 'What we witnessed on the screen keeps playing over in our minds. It's awful.'

Barney's body was left in the road following the attack, which lasted for around a minute, while Grace managed to stumble into the front garden of a nearby house, where she collapsed by the front door while apparently trying to summon help.

 

[RosalindaA]

It's interesting that in the video of Calocane holding what looks like another smaller, younger male in a headlock, he has to be coerced to release the lad and another young man can be heard twice saying "ring the police". And obviously someone thought they should video the behaviour. Was this an incident that police attended, was it one of several? It has been stated Calocane was also known to police including "petty drug dealing" Police continue to quiz Nottingham murder suspect 'known to MI5'
and was logged as trying to enter the MI5 building in London.

Also, in the above article, Mr Proverb, the resident of the hostel who bravely prevented a probable massacre in that home, states that although Valocane was silent during their altercation, he heard that the suspect did ask the security guard when he went out whether the house was a hospital or a hostel. So again, Valocane is quite calmly looking for vulnerable victims. Unfortunately police were not urgently called to the hostel. which the security guard should have done. I understand why he didn't, as police can be "non-responsive" to this type of thing but it should have been done and MIGHT have prevented the further murder of Mr.Coates and the three attempted murders.

It's a toxic circle when the public believe the police will not respond to ""minor" offences, we have to expect and insist that public services do their job. I would have given them the benefit of the doubt here and asked them to pick this man up. It was a determined effort to break into a facility for the vulnerable, with witnesses and CCTV and on its own should have resulted in a charge.

Would also be relevant to know if the flatmates had noticed any knives in Calocane's room, any political/societal comments, had they flagged anything to the police or the university? From what's out there I think it looks like there were warning signs that officials are going to have to answer for. Notts police have already referred themselves to the IOPC as it looks like the van ploughed into the pedestrians whilst they were in pursuit of the suspect in the stolen van. I'm pretty sure Calocane would have done this anyway but it has to be considered Police watchdog to investigate van driver before pedestrians hit

Police did handle a difficult arrest well though, I thought, they used minimal force it seems, in a highly stressful and dangerous situation as the suspect apparently still had the machete.

 

[Skigh]

Ex-university student, 31,charged in court after Nottingham rampage

Valdo Calocane, 31, has been remanded in custody by magistrates on murder and attempted murder charges after three people were killed and three were injured in attacks in Nottingham on Tuesday.

www.dailymail.co.uk

At court, the defendant spoke only to confirm his name as 'Adam Mendes', his date of birth and that he was of no fixed abode.

 

[AliceInPain]

Yes, very telling article, these flatmates are lucky to be alive as is the former girlfriend. To me the difficulty with appropriate social interactions, lost in thought, and now in the charging documents, being of ""no fixed abode" suggests maybe people were pulling away from the suspect and starting to recognize danger.
I think we may be looking at possible psychopathy here rather than mental illness as again, the suspect did manage to complete a degree in a challenging discipline, at the same time as these incidences were occurring. So his brain was not generally disordered, as in schizophrenia for example and there was a certain amount of control over his behaviour.
I think his internet history will be interesting.
As to charging him, I think the police and the Crown usually go ahead according to the evidence of the criminal acts, a defense counsel could then argue an insanity defence but the bar for this is rightly, very high and would require a large amount of medical evidence of mental illness. Unlikely to fly in this case, I would think, due to the obvious ( to me), planned nature of these murders.

sbm, bbm. I suffer from severe social anxiety and those all apply to me.
I'm neither a psychopath nor a murderer.
Some people don't like my company because I'm not like them. Cheerful and smiley.
Can't judge a person due to a few traits you don't agree with.
Either a person has evil in their minds or they don't, and that's where the error is.
Whatever else could be anyone.

I wonder why he said his name is "Adam Mendes". That's nothing like his real name

 

[Sarahlou]

sbm, bbm. I suffer from severe social anxiety and those all apply to me.
I'm neither a psychopath nor a murderer.
Some people don't like my company because I'm not like them. Cheerful and smiley.
Can't judge a person due to a few traits you don't agree with.
Either a person has evil in their minds or they don't, and that's where the error is.
Whatever else could be anyone.

I wonder why he said his name is "Adam Mendes". That's nothing like his real name

Some articles said his full name is Valdo Emissão Mendes Calocane. No idea why he chose Adam though.

 

[RosalindaA]

sbm, bbm. I suffer from severe social anxiety and those all apply to me.
I'm neither a psychopath nor a murderer.
Some people don't like my company because I'm not like them. Cheerful and smiley.
Can't judge a person due to a few traits you don't agree with.
Either a person has evil in their minds or they don't, and that's where the error is.
Whatever else could be anyone.

I wonder why he said his name is "Adam Mendes". That's nothing like his real name

Not quite sure why you accuse me of judging people who are quiet or socially awkward.

I merely said that IN THE CONTEXT of looking at a specific person who is charged with three heinous murders those characteristics MAY point away from possible defences of psychosis to a certain type of psychopath.

As opposed to the charming psychopath. Such a murderous spree is only committed by a clinically insane person or a psychopath. Please do not attribute such prejudices to me.

 

[Skigh]

Man charged over fatal Nottingham street attacks to enter pleas

The man accused of murdering three people and attempting to kill three others in a spate of attacks in Nottingham will enter his pleas in September.

www.dailymail.co.uk

When asked to identify himself at the start of the hearing, the defendant replied 'my name is Adam Mendes', which he also said when he faced magistrates in the city on Saturday.

Judge Nirmal Shant KC adjourned proceedings until a plea and trial preparation hearing on September 25 at the same court and thanked the families of the victims for their 'upmost restraint'.



Judge Shant set a provisional trial date of January 12 2024 and remanded Calocane into custody.

 

[AliceInPain]

I can't open DM articles, but I saw the other day his parents had Portugese nationality since 2006.
Not that it really matters but it answered a question I had earlier.
He would have been about 14.
He grew up in Wales and was "a polite churchgoer from a good family", later went to University.
It's too common for young men especially in their 20s to suddenly get mentally unwell, wish we knew why, but the UK is not the best of countries to live in when something like that happens.
All that happened to my son was test after test, some half-a33ed counselling and medicines that didn't work, and when I told his doctors they just made him angry they upped the dose, which made him even angrier.
I don't know if it's like that everywhere in the UK but it wouldn't surprise me if something similar happened to this guy.

 

[JerseyGirl]

Nottingham attacks suspect Valdo Calocane appears at crown court as trial date set

The 31-year-old is accused of the murders of University of Nottingham students Grace O'Malley-Kumar and Barnaby Webber and school caretaker Ian Coates. He is also charged with three counts of attempted murder.

news.sky.com

A provisional trial date was set for 12 January.

 

[StillDiggin]

Nottingham attacks victims were stabbed in chest, coroner says

A coroner opens an inquest into the deaths of Barnaby Webber, Grace O'Malley-Kumar and Ian Coates.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Luwin]

Nottingham attacks: Funeral held for 'angelic' Grace O'Malley-Kumar

Tributes are paid to 19-year-old Grace O'Malley-Kumar who died after being stabbed in Nottingham.

www.bbc.co.uk

The father of Nottingham attack victim Grace O'Malley-Kumar has described his daughter as an "angelic girl" in a poignant eulogy at her funeral.
Hundreds of mourners attended a service for the 19-year-old at Westminster Cathedral in London on Friday.

 

[Legally Bland]

Valdo Calocane, 32, who also uses the name Adam Mendes, pleaded not guilty on Tuesday at Nottingham crown court to murder on grounds of diminished responsibility, but has admitted to manslaughter and attempted murder.

He appeared in the dock wearing a dark suit, and answered to the name Adam Mendes.

The defence lawyer Pete Joyce KC said “the defendant does not dispute the physical acts of any of the prosecution’s case” but the defence say he “was suffering from extreme mental illness” at the time.

The case has been adjourned until 16 January and the prosecution will review medical evidence before considering whether to accept the pleas.

Nottingham attacks: man admits killing three but denies murder

Valdo Calocane, also known as Adam Mendes, admits killing Grace O’Malley-Kumar, Barnaby Webber and Ian Coates in June

www.theguardian.com

 

[Skigh]

Prosecutors accept Nottingham triple-killer manslaughter plea

Today the court heard that psychiatrists for the prosecution and defence were in agreement that the paranoid schizophrenic was unfit to stand trial for murder.

www.dailymail.co.uk

The engineering graduate who stabbed three people to death and attempted to kill three more during a city-wide rampage is not fit to stand trial for murder, a court heard today.

A judge was told three psychiatrists had assessed Valdo Calocane and jointly concluded that he was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia at the time of the offences.

Prosecutor Karim Khalil said the experts concluded the condition ‘resulted in an abnormality of mental function….and an inability to exercise full control.’

But he added: ‘They concluded he would have understood the nature’ of his actions as he stabbed students Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley Kumar with a ‘double-sided dagger’ he was carrying in his rucksack, before moving on to kill caretaker Ian Coates a mile and a half away across Nottingham.

 

[Skigh]

Why was Nottingham knifeman free to kill?

Valdo Calocane, 32, killed students Grace O'Malley-Kumar and Barnaby Webber, both 19, and school caretaker Ian Coates, 65, in Nottingham last June.

www.dailymail.co.uk

seriously disturbed man who stabbed three people to death last year had been reported to police and university authorities for violent behaviour at least four times before the fatal attacks, MailOnline can reveal.

Calocane had a four-year history of mental issues. These spiralled during lockdown, triggering the spate of alarming incidents which brought him to the attention of the university, police and healthcare professionals.

One young woman was so terrified after being followed into her accommodation by Calocane that she jumped out of a window to escape him – sustaining serious injuries - a source said.

The woman's mother was said to be so concerned she is believed to have contacted the university about Calocane, but he was allowed to continue his studies.

Calocane is believed to have spent around a month receiving hospital treatment around that time. In a further incident in July 2020, Calocane is said to have broken into a neighbour's flat and threatened the occupants.

Police were called and it is understood the future killer ended up being detained in hospital under the Mental Health Act until the end of that month. Calocane was detained under the same Act in November 2021 and then again the following January.

On the latter occasion, police were called after the 'sinister' student trapped a flatmate in their shared kitchen – having first grabbed him in a headlock and fractured his finger during a row over a dirty shower.

Officers took Calocane away and later told his flatmates the mature student had been sectioned.

It is not known how long Calocane was detained in hospital, but a source said he stopped engaging with health services soon after.

Within a few months of the incident in the flat, he was caught attempting to break into the same ground-floor property – just a two minute walk from the spot where the pair fell.

One of the students who shared the accommodation with Calocane told MailOnline: 'Looking back, I think he was a ticking timebomb and he was going to explode some time.