The mother of Nottingham stabbing victim Barnaby Webber has hit out at the father of her son’s attacker after he finally broke his silence over the case.
Emma Webber accused Amissao Calocane of ‘denying’ the families answers by providing ‘vague and watered down’ evidence about his mentally ill son Valdo’s behaviour in the run-up to the 2023 atrocity.
Calocane stabbed 19-year-old Mr Webber, his friend and fellow first-year student Grace O’Malley-Kumar, and 65-year-old caretaker Ian Coates during a frenzied attack in Nottingham city centre, three years ago this weekend.
He then rammed Mr Coates’ work van into pedestrians, seriously injuring three others before he was eventually stopped in a case which sent shockwaves through Britain.
But while Calocane’s mother, Celeste, and brother, Elias, both gave evidence to a public inquiry into what happened, Amissao was apparently granted special permission not to do so.
Three witness statements provided to the inquiry, which closed last week after three-and-a-half months, have now been published in which Amissao described having ‘no clear memory’ of his son’s dwindling mental health, or of other key events.
Neither could he remember a conversation hours before his son struck in which Calocane said he no longer wanted his mother, a nurse, to contact him.
Responding to his witness statements on social media, Mrs Webber wrote: ‘Calocane senior’s vague and watered-down written evidence is denying us of answers we have the right to hear.
Valdo Calocane has been handed an indefinite hospital order for the killing spree
‘He was given permission not to appear despite numerous appeals from the survivors and bereaved legal teams. It is a decision that none of us were happy with. At all.
‘Statements only are one-way information.
‘Sadly we are powerless and bound by the decision.’
Mr Calocane said he had no idea what his son had done until the afternoon following the atrocity.
He said: ‘When they (members of the family) saw me, they asked if I had heard anything about Valdo.
‘I said I hadn’t and that is when they showed me the news on TV and told me what had happened in Nottingham.
‘At first, I couldn’t believe it was true.
‘It took me a long time to accept the reality of what happened — it wasn’t until I saw the videos of Valdo that I realised what he had done.’
Emma Webber, whose son Barnaby was killed by Calocane in Nottingham three years ago
The victims’ families have long wanted answers about Calocane’s troubling behaviour in the months before he struck, and to know what the fiend’s family did about it.
Mrs Webber added: ‘This is important and it is relevant.
‘His child destroyed my family. He stole my son from us.
‘Surely to have the chance to have answers and the truth is the very least I/we are entitled to?’
The inquiry heard Calocane had been sectioned four times in the three years before he struck on June 13 2023, but he was repeatedly released back into the community despite concerns about his deteriorating behaviour.
A consultant psychiatrist even warned he ‘could end up killing someone’ when he was first sectioned in 2020.
He had a history of violence and reportedly assaulted two colleagues at the factory where they worked just weeks before he struck.
Yet Leicestershire Police called to the scene did not realise Calocane already had an outstanding warrant for his arrest by Nottinghamshire Police for allegedly assaulting an emergency worker – something the inexperienced officer called to the scene admitted was an ‘operational mistake’.
The three people killed by a mentally ill man in Nottingham in 2023 are: (left to right) Ian Coates, Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar
Calocane repeatedly misled medical professionals in Nottingham, refusing to take a certain type of medication because of his supposed fear of needles – despite getting Covid jabs.
He was discharged from his specialised mental health team to his GP around nine months before he struck, after failing to engage with them.
And it was revealed the mental health team previously flagged concerns about sectioning Calocane, who is originally from Guinea-Bissau in West Africa, in case it was seen as racist.
He was handed an indefinite hospital order having pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
The families remain furious prosecutors did not seek a murder charge and are calling for a meeting with the Government to explore their options.
The inquiry is due to report its findings in a year’s time.
