The mother and brother of tragic Barnaby Webber, who was killed in a knife attack in Nottingham, have spoken about how they have tried to come to terms with what happened to him.
Barnaby and Grace O'Malley-Kumar, both 19, were killed in Nottingham in June last year by Valdo Calocane, who also went on to kill 65-year-old Ian Coates.
In an interview with Bev Turner and Andrew Pierce on GB News, his mother Emma was asked how she managed to get out of bed in the morning.
She said: “One of the major reasons is sat next to me. I don't know how....but you try to find a way don't you?”
Barnaby’s brother Charlie said: “I think it kind of like it gets easier than it was…but it's still difficult to talk about.”
Emma said: “We had so many people wanting to donate or do something last summer and we honestly had no capacity to know what we wanted to do. So we set up the Barnaby Webber Foundation, thinking ‘okay, we've done that’, it is a conduit that people can put put their monies in’ and we knew that we wanted it to reflect the the person that Barney was, the type of human being he was and the qualities he had.
“So that's why it's to support any young people under the age of 18 with life challenges. That can be anything - physical, mental, financial, emotional, school, anything like that. We can support charities or individuals or families, but also his absolute love of cricket.
“We know ourselves living in Somerset, it's a big cricket county, but it's expensive. It gets pricey, it’s hard to get young people in sometimes and he'd be so chuffed if he thought there's going to be a Barnaby Webber Foundation that's giving to young people…
Charlie said there is a fund-raining event planned for Thursday: “It’s kind of like an auction evening and a celebration. We've got loads of things that we're selling and stuff to raise money for the foundation.”
Emma said: “We have to make it a celebration. It's been so much dark and it's really hard to find much light…a good friend of mine, Tanya, who's Charlie's friend who he went to Glastonbury with on Sunday, she has been so amazing organising it with the school.
“It's sort of become a really big thing and we've got Alex Jones from the One Show who's hosting kindly for us. We've got Timothy Forrester from one of the antiques road trip programs… he's our auctioneer.
“We've got the most amazing auction lots and raffle lots…Coldplay have donated amazing lots. We've got an original Shaun the Sheep, you know the ones, they were in Bristol in 2015 and the original artist, she's refurbishing one that's been donated. That's going up for auction.
“We've got Frank Warren, the boxing promoters, giving us tickets for two events. Liverpool Football Club have donated loads and loads.”
Recalling receiving news of his brother’s death, Charlie said: “I remember I was on a school trip and my teacher told me, ‘oh, you've got to go home, your parents are here’.
“I knew something was wrong because I hadn't done anything wrong to be sent home by this point, so I knew something had happened and when I saw mum and dad turn up, I kind of knew a part of me that it was to do with Barney because if it was something that big, and it wasn't him, he'd be there.
“And then I remember sitting down on the side of the bus and my parents telling me that there's been an incident in Nottingham and Barney has been killed and I just, it's like, I remember the feeling. I can't really describe it, I felt very fuzzy.
“I just broke down in tears and I didn't know what to do. I didn't know where to go. I was getting overheated. And it's just, it's something you can't comprehend.”
His mother Emma said: “It’s right up there with the top five most traumatic things that I've ever had to do and all of them were last year last June and I do you think about it, knowing that we were going to change his life irreparably within five seconds. Yeah, awful.
“People say that we're measured and we are trying to deal with this, to try and to move forward but never fear that there's this white hot fury about what happened and the failings and that's why we're fighting so hard.
“But that's why it's also in some ways, a tonic to be here with Charlie today and be able to talk about something a little bit brighter, you know, that we can maybe do something positive with the foundation.
She said they have remained close to the other two families: “Very close and…we've spent a lot of time with them and it's not just it's not just when we have these, you know, awful, new traumatic meetings we have to have with the government with the agencies and you know, our lawyers etc.
“We do genuinely enjoy the company…I couldn't see why those kids were so drawn to each other, because they're just such an amazing family and we didn't have the opportunity…
“We've been in really close contact and I think they'd probably say the same. We think that we feel like their family. David and I were really honoured to be invited to James's wedding in April and the Coates are coming to the event on Thursday night.
“It's easy to sometimes focus on the youth, on the beauty, focus on the tragedy, but Ian was an amazing man. He was weeks away from his hard-worked-for retirement, and then this monster took him.”
Asked what wrongs she wants righted, she said: “There are enormous multi-agency failures, which is something unfortunately, we're hearing an awful lot in the news, from inquiries. So we have to address all of those.
“And that's right from 2020 onwards when he was diagnosed, treated, or lack of treatment, within the healthcare system…so we have to address all of that and we will, but I think what we do really need to talk about is how we can change and why we must change legislation.
“Our criminal justice system is archaic. There's no support really for victims…I would say victim support is something to concentrate on.
“We have, because we've made so much noise, we’ve had some doors open and we have to take that opportunity.”
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