Nottingham killer's mother tells inquiry mental health system is 'so broken'

The mother of the Nottingham attacks killer Valdo Calocane told a public inquiry the mental health system meant to care for him was "so broken".

Celeste Calocane said this to the Nottingham Inquiry, which is probing the attacks on June 13, 2023, in which Valdo, diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in 2020, stabbed Barnaby Webber, Grace O'Malley-Kumar and Ian Coates to death and tried to kill three others.

She described trying to navigate unfamiliar services while her son was sectioned four times in two years. The inquiry heard she had flagged him as a public risk three years before the killings.

Valdo's family lives in Wales. He was studying and living in Nottingham when he had his first psychosis episode. Born in Guinea-Bissau in 1991, he lived in Madeira and then Lisbon as a young child before moving to the UK at age 16.

Celeste first noticed something wrong in 2020 when Valdo called the family agitated and crying. Police arrested him in May 2020 after he tried to break into a neighbor's flat, leading to his first admission to Highbury Hospital's psychiatric ward on May 25.

She said staff told her there was no diagnosis yet because it was a first episode. Valdo was discharged June 13, but Celeste felt it was too early. She said she had no power to act beyond agreeing to admissions.

On July 11 after discharge, Celeste called Valdo's mental health crisis team about concerns he was unwell again. They made only a phone call to him, with no further action.

Two days later, the team told her Valdo had again tried to break into a neighbor's flat. In August 2020, Celeste raised concerns he posed a risk to others. No one discussed this with her.

"I just had to navigate the system myself and try to make sense of what is going on," she said. No one explained risks, what to watch for or what could happen. "I was just navigating the system on my own."

She added that no one discussed Valdo's risk to himself. "At this point I don't even know what can happen to him. I'm just like living in anxiety basically."

Later Thursday, Celeste addressed inquiry chair Deborah Taylor KC, a retired senior judge. She said she wanted to help bring changes so no one else endures this.

"No brother or mother should be left alone in that situation to try to navigate the service," she said. "I think somebody should sit and explain to you, 'this is the diagnosis, this is what you need to know, this is what you have to look at'. The system is so broken. No-one should have to go to bed thinking I'm going to have a phone call tomorrow that something happened to my loved one. When it gets to crisis, it's too late."

Ian Coates's son Darren then stormed out of the hearing room.

Celeste said she never saw her son's care decisions until requesting his medical records in 2024, after his sentencing for manslaughter on grounds of diminished responsibility and attempted murder. She spoke to mental health services 100 times but felt powerless.

She learned of his fourth 2022 admission only from those records. "I didn't know much of what was going on. The ties cut completely."

Valdo withdrew consent for sharing care details with her in December 2021, a choice Celeste said he lacked capacity to make. Contact grew less frequent. When they spoke, he told her he took medication and was fine.

The last time Celeste saw Valdo before the killings was November 2022. She was heading to a Birmingham concert to surprise her daughter; Valdo met them. He looked presentable and clean but had a kind of emptiness, she said.

Services and Valdo had assured her he was fine, so she felt she had to adjust to a new son. "This was my new son, so I just had to adjust to it."

The inquiry continues.