The families of Nottingham stabbing victims Grace O’Malley-Kumar and Barnaby Webber have recalled the moment they were told about the horrific attack which took them from their lives.
The pair of teens, both 19, were repeatedly stabbed by Valdo Calocane as they walked home from a night out in June last year, with their attacker going on to kill school caretaker Ian Coates.
The parents of Barnaby have recalled they were left panicking after news of a major incident in the city filtered through on television, before receiving a heartbreaking phone call from the police saying their son was ‘deceased’ which left his mother ‘screaming’ at the side of the road.
Barnaby’s brother Charlie also revealed how even nine months after the attack he still struggled to enter his older sibling’s room at their family home due to the memories that come flooding back.
Meanwhile, Grace’s parents have recalled how they were alerted by her university friends who told them Barnaby had died and that Grace had been with him at the time before the police had a chance to contact them.
And the loved ones of Ian Coates say it felt like the world around them had ‘disappeared’ after they realised he had been caught up in the attacks that shocked the nation.
The emotional memories were revealed in a new BBC documentary, The Big Cases: The Nottingham Attacks, which aired on Monday evening and chronicled Calocane’s horrific crime spree, which also left three other people seriously injured, and the awful impact it has had on the families of his victims.
Speaking on the documentary the parents of Barnaby, David and Emma Webber, recalled the dawning horror as they realised their son might have been hurt early on June 13, 2023.
Mr Webber said he had noticed that there was a major incident in Nottingham and ‘started thinking ‘ok, let me just see where he [Barnaby] is”.
However, when they tried to check on his location using a mobile phone app it showed he wasn’t in his halls of residence.
‘Ilkeston Road came up on the news and Dave said ‘Barney’s phone’s in Ilkeston Road’ and then the phone started moving,’ Mrs Webber said.
‘My instant reaction was ‘he’s picked up, why isn’t he answering?’ I tried to ring it and tried to ring it. And then I saw where it went… it went to the police station.’
The couple then revealed the heartbreaking moment they received a phone call from the police telling them they believed one of the victims was Barnaby.
‘When someone says to you ‘Are you driving? Can you pull over safely?’ You just know that what they’re going to tell you is not what you want to hear. And yes, my world just fell apart,’ Mr Webber said.
Mrs Webber added: ‘They said the word ‘deceased’ and Barney’s driving licence was on him.
‘And I remember I got out the car and I screamed. It was just like everything went dark around us.’
Barnaby’s parents added that they then had to break the horrible news to Barnaby’s younger brother, Charlie, who ‘didn’t want to believe’ that his older sibling was no longer with them.
He said: ‘How are we going to tell him? How the hell do we tell him that his brother’s dead, murdered?’
‘As a father you just feel your life’s gone. I’ve lost one and he [Charlie] was just crying his eyes out.’
Mrs Webber added: ‘He didn’t want to believe it obviously. He kept saying ‘it can’t be true, it can’t be true. I can’t live without him’.’
The programme also revealed how Charlie Webber had been so impacted by his brother’s death that he had barely gone into Barnaby’s room in the nine months after the attack.
Showing a BBC camera crew around his brother’s untouched room, he said: ‘It’s quite weird coming in here because no one really comes in here.
‘Nothing’s been changed in here, I think a lot of the stuff here no necessarily brings back memories but means a lot.’
He added that it was ‘tough’ to be in the room given the good memories he has of his brother in the space.
In the documentary Grace’s parents revealed that they had been warned to expect the worst by their daughter’s friends who had rang them in the morning.
Her mother Sinead O’Malley-Kumar said: ‘Her friend from university phoned me and said that Barney was dead and that Grace was with Barney, they left together and we knew then.’
Grace’s heartbroken younger brother James, emotionally added: ‘Our hearts just kind of sunk when we heard that she was gone, and still to this day I still can’t comprehend that I will not see her again.’
The family of Calocane’s third victim, Ian Coates, also recalled how they were horrified on finding out what had happened to the much-loved 65-year-old, who was found dead on Magdala Road.
His son, James Coates, said: ‘I’d heard that there had been an attack on Magdala Road which is around the corner from where I live.
‘Slowly we started to put two and two together, and basically figured out what had happened and that it was my dad who was the victim on Magdala Road.
‘It felt like a weight had just dropped from the sky and gone straight through my body.
‘I had to hold myself onto a lamppost to keep myself up because the whole world around me just disappeared.’
The school caretakers sister Susan Coates added that she ‘just screamed’ when told the news by her daughter, adding that her brother was ‘such a kind man and all he was doing was going to work’.
The killer of the trio, Valdo Calocane, was arrested by Nottinghamshire Police less than two hours after the first reports of his attacks.
In that time he stabbed Barnaby, Grace and Ian to death, and left three other people seriously injured after ploughing into them in Mr Coates’s van.
The then-31-year-old, who had a history of mental health problems and has been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, would later admit to three counts of manslaughter on the basis of diminished responsibility and three of attempted murder.
The Crown Prosecution Service received criticism for accepting these pleas, for which Calocane was sentenced to indefinite detention at a high-security hospital.
The families of his victims have campaigned for changes to the law after a court ruling that prosecutors were right to accept manslaughter charges rather than murder offences.
Mrs Webber has said it is ‘abhorrent’ that murder charges were not pursued, while a report has called on ministers to consider recategorising homicide laws, as recommended by the Law Commission nearly 20 years ago.
That could mean there would be three tiers of charges available to prosecutors – first degree and second degree murder, as well as manslaughter.
There was an outcry of anger from the victims’ families after prosecutors decided not to pursue murder charges for Calocane, prompting Attorney General Victoria Prentis to order the review of how the CPS handled the case and ask the Court of Appeal to review the sentence.
Inspectors found that if the Law Commission’s 2006 recommendations on homicide charges had been accepted and implemented, ‘the unlawful killings in this tragic case would have been categorised as murder, albeit second degree murder’.
Speaking to reporters after the findings were published in March, Mrs Webber said the families were ‘disappointed but not entirely surprised’.
She said: ‘Until the law changes in this country, the diminished responsibility charge and plea means that murderers can get away with murder.’
The relatives of Calocane’s victims ‘never disputed’ his mental health problems, she said.
She added: ‘What I would say is that at the moment in this country, if you commit murder and you’ve got mental health issues, then it’s very unlikely that you are going to be tried for murder.
‘It’s abhorrent that it could be downgraded to manslaughter just because it is how the law is stated’.
Grace’s father Dr Sanjoy Kumar added: ‘I think the first question you have to ask is, can a paranoid schizophrenic commit murder in this country?
‘Because it seems to me that you can’t and that’s impossible for us to understand.’
The documentary The Big Cases: The Nottingham Attacks can be viewed on BBC iPlayer.
William Turner is a seasoned U.K. correspondent with a deep understanding of domestic affairs. With a passion for British politics and culture, he provides insightful analysis and comprehensive coverage of events within the United Kingdom.
