The death of a 19-year-old student who was killed in the Nottingham attacks in 2023 was âpotentially preventableâ, a public inquiry into the incident has heard.
Barnaby Webber and Grace OâMalley-Kumar, both 19, and Ian Coates, a 65-year-old caretaker, were fatally stabbed by Valdo Calocane, a paranoid schizophrenic, on 13 June 2023.
In 2024, Calocane was sentenced to an indefinite hospital order after admitting three counts of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility and three counts of attempted murder.
The inquiry is examining the events leading up to attacks, and has heard evidence from various local authorities, including health professionals and police officers, as well as Calocaneâs family, in order to assess the âevents, acts and omissionsâ that led to the killings.
During closing submissions on Tuesday, it heard how a panel of medical professionals had assessed the emergency medical response to the attacks and the âsurvivabilityâ of victims.
Rachel Langdale KC, counsel to the inquiry, said the assessment had found that âmore rapid administration of blood productsâ could have increased Webberâs chance of getting to hospital and possibly undergoing surgery.
The 19-year-old had a âfar lessâ than 50% chance of surviving his injuries, which was classed as âpotentially preventableâ, Langdale said. She added that OâMalley-Kumar and Coatesâs deaths were ânot preventableâ.
The assessment, which also acknowledged the efforts of emergency services, found that a more rapid administration of blood to Webber would have to have been coupled with multiple other rapid and meticulous steps âin order for Barnaby to survive to intensive careâ.
The inquiry also addressed the emergence of further evidence after hearings had concluded in early June.
At the start of closing arguments, the inquiryâs chair, Deborah Taylor KC, said it was âdisappointingâ, and that further evidence âought to have been identified by core participants and disclosed earlierâ. She called on them to provide all corrections and omissions by 31 December.
Such evidence included the police discovery of a holdall bag at Calocaneâs former address in Nottingham in the days after the attack. The bag contained notebooks that were not disclosed to the inquiry until June this year.
The books contained notes from Calocane in which he described himself as God, and said police had âmind-reading softwareâ and that he had the power to âresurrect peopleâ, the inquiry heard.
Other documents created by Calocane were found in a bin at the property, containing bullet points about explosives, including TNT and nitrate fertiliser. Such notes were not identified or taken into account by police, nor made available to the Crown Prosecution Service or to psychiatric experts, the inquiry heard.
The lawyer representing bereaved families, Tim Moloney KC, said one of the notes appeared to say âManchester Arenaâ. Calocane had also searched online for âlarge venues in Nottinghamâ, he said.
âNobody has ever asked [Calocane] why he was researching explosives and large venues, because they couldnât,â Maloney said. âThere was a failure to investigate [Calocaneâs] historical behaviour and actions.â
The inquiry was also not told of violent assaults committed by Calocane until after the hearings concluded in early June. One involved an assault on a colleague in a warehouse in 2021, and in another he punched a colleague in Normanton in February 2023.
Evidence presented to the inquiry earlier this year detailed how Calocane had committed a string of violent incidents in the years before the attacks, leading to him being sectioned four times in the space of two years.
An arrest warrant was also out for Calocane at the time of the Nottingham attacks, after he failed to appear in court for the alleged assault of a police officer, the inquiry heard previously.
Closing submissions will conclude on Wednesday and a report detailing the inquiryâs findings will be published next year.
