Experts demand mental health overhaul after Nottingham killer’s family ‘ignored’ ...Middle East

Families of mentally ill people like Valdo Calocane will continue to be “dismissed and ignored” unless there is a cultural change within the NHS, leading mental health experts have said.

The Nottingham triple killer’s mother Celeste and brother Elias said there were a series of missed opportunities over three years to prevent the murders of 19-year-old students Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar, and 65-year-old caretaker Ian Coates, in June 2023.

Calocane, a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic, had been detained in hospital under the Mental Health Act on four occasions between May 2020 and January 2022, yet discharged back into the community despite a history of violence and failure to take his medication.

An independent report into his care leading up to the tragedy, published on Wednesday, revealed concerns by Calocane’s family about his deteriorating mental health were often dismissed.

Emma Webber, Barnaby’s mother, described the report as a “horror show” that showed mental health teams “missed opportunities” because “they just didn’t do their jobs properly”.

At a press conference on Wednesday all three victims’ families reiterated their call for a statutory public inquiry into the tragedy.

Marjorie Wallace, chief executive of mental health charity SANE, told The i Paper: “Following the press conference what comes across as strikingly unacceptable is the way that families of mentally ill people are dismissed, kept out in the cold and their warnings of a person they know whose mental health is deteriorating are consistently ignored.

“Time and time again, callers to our helpline, SANEline, tells us that they are not listened to, and their knowledge of the patient is rejected and not included in care plans or risk assessments. Our own research into homicides reveals that failure to heed the warnings of families is a major trigger factor in over 50 per cent of cases.

“There is no excuse to treat families and those who care for a patient as interfering and a nuisance as they are often the ones left to take responsibility when that individual is discharged. This does not require huge resources but a change in culture which seems to have been allowed to exist and continue unchecked in many areas.”

Wallace said both victims’ and perpetrators families have constantly been shunned and denied support or counselling over many decades.

“Celeste and Elias Calocane illustrate this with their dignified recognition of the immeasurable pain caused by a member of their family and acknowledging that there are good people working in mental health services and not always like those who cruelly failed them,” she said.

“Over the three decades that I’ve attended inquiries the same flaws and fault lines persist. Many of them requiring simply better skill, training, judgement and humanity. Another public inquiry will simply expose the well-known litany of flaws which have been the cause of the loss of life.”

Lucy Schonegevel, director of policy and practice at Rethink Mental Illness, said she hoped a statutory inquiry, which has the power to compel witnesses to give evidence on oath, will bring about “proper accountability and change within mental health services”.

She said: “Community mental health services need to be bolstered, so that staff have more time to spend with service users and ensure they are receiving the treatment they need.

“Outreach services are particularly vital in preventing people from losing contact with the system, and we need assurances that they are being rolled out at speed, as well as more detail on how services will be monitored and held accountable to ensure people aren’t being discharged without the proper checks.

“It’s also key that investment is provided for services to implement reform of the Mental Health Act, with changes such as ensuring the families of people living with mental illness have a voice and are involved in decision-making helping to reduce risk.”

Dr Sanjoy Kumar, the father of Grace O’Malley-Kumar, told the press conference he would be writing to Health Secretary Wes Streeting to order Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust to hold individual clinicians “responsible”, adding: “We demand accountability.”

Calocane was sentenced to an indefinite hospital order but Mrs Webber said the findings of the report showed he had “got away with murder”. The report said Calocane was not forced to have long-lasting anti-psychotic medication because he did not like needles.

Grace’s mother, Dr Sinead O’Malley-Kumar, said there had been poor decision-making and “laziness” among health staff who treated her daughter’s killer.

She said: “If any of them knew that Valdo Calocane was going to go out and share student accommodation with their children, I suspect their choices may have changed. Accountability on an individual level is essential.”

Solicitor Neil Hudgell, acting on behalf of the families of the Nottingham attack victims, said they will meet the Government next week to discuss a statutory public inquiry.

In a statement released after the report’s publication, Streeting said: “The findings will help to support an inquiry into this attack and we’ll set out the next steps as this develops.

“It’s clear there were failings in how the care provided to Valdo Calocane was managed at every level, which is why I’ve personally called for all the recommendations made in the Care Quality Commission report to be implemented across the country.

“I want to see the recommendations from this new report implemented as soon as possible and I will be keeping track of progress and performance to make sure that they are.”

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