A killer’s mental state has been examined by defence and prosecution barristers at a court in Nottingham after he stabbed three people to death last year.
Three psychiatrists who had assessed killer Valdo Calocane gave evidence as part of the second day of a sentencing hearing detailing how he had “heard voices” which told him to kill his victims.
He is in court for the “uncompromisingly brutal” killings in which he used a double-edged dagger to “repeatedly stab” his victims on June 13 last year in a city-wide rampage.
At the time, he was also wanted by Nottinghamshire Police for failing to appear at court relating to an alleged assault on a police officer in September 2022. Nottingham Police admitted he should have been pursued earlier.
Valdo Calocane is due to be sentenced tomorrow
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Valdo Calocane, who also goes by the name Adam Mendes, and has paranoid schizophrenia, appeared before Nottingham Crown Court in a smart suit and flanked by custody officers.
Dr Leo McSweeney, a consultant psychiatrist, said the defendant “felt pressure” to kill people otherwise something “atrocious” would happen to his family.
Calocane’s barrister, Peter Joyce KC, told the court the defendant once visited MI5’s London headquarters, asking them to stop “controlling him”.
Joyce said the incident happened on May 31 2021, about two years before the “desperate episode” in which three people were killed on the streets of Nottingham.
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Valdo Calocane pleaded guilty to manslaughter and attempted murder
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Dr Nigel Blackwood, professor of forensic psychiatry at King’s College London, told the court Calocane has shown a “profound lack of awareness” of his serious mental health condition, which he will have “until his dying day”.
Despite his paranoid schizophrenia, which caused an “abnormality of mental function”, Dr Blackwood said Calocane knew at the time that what he was doing was “morally and legally wrong”, which led him to rule out a potential defence of insanity.
Prosecutor Karim Khalil KC said Calocane “knew what he was about to do” as he prepared to attack Webber and O’Malley-Kumar from behind as they walked to their student accommodation after a night out.
Khalil said: “What he did was wait in the shadows until the two students walked past and he followed them from behind. He attacked them from behind when they were at their most vulnerable.”
The Crown accepted guilty pleas on Tuesday to three counts of manslaughter for killing students Grace O’Malley Kumar and Barnaby Webber, both 19, and school caretaker Ian Coates, 65, on the grounds of diminished responsibility because of his mental illness.
Calocane also pleaded guilty to attempted murder for driving a van into three pedestrians.
The Judge is expected to sentence between a Hospital Order, sending Calocane to a high-security psychiatric hospital, and a Hybrid Order, which would also include a move toward prison custody with improved illness.
Valdo Calocane is due to be sentenced tomorrow at 11.30am.
