Secret state
The Nottingham Inquiry
On June 13, 2023, a mentally ill man named Valdo Calocane went on a rampage in Nottingham, murdering 65-year-old caretaker Ian Coates and two 19-year-old students, Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar. All three victims were clearly much loved by families and friends, and warm tributes poured out; O’Malley-Kumar had died trying to protect her friend and was posthumously awarded the George Medal for bravery. It was a senseless waste of life, all the more so because the killer had a long history of violence and just six weeks before the murders had attacked two people. The police failed to act.
Calocane had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in 2020, sectioned under the Mental Health Act several times between that year and 2023, ‘and was involved with a number of violent incidents before his killings’ according to reports.
Yet, as the Times recently stated, the inquiry was told that ‘the Nottingham triple killer carried out an earlier violent attack after being released by mental health professionals’ worried about the ‘over-representation’ of young black men in custody.
The newspaper noted that Calocane had ‘tried to batter down a neighbour’s front door, frightening her so much that she jumped out of a first-floor window and badly injured her back.’ While the mental health service had been ‘leaning towards’ sectioning him, he was released after ‘the team of professionals considered the research evidence that shows over-representation of young black males in detention’.
