Nottingham inquiry hears Calocane discharged 9 months before attacks

A public inquiry into the Nottingham attacks has heard that Valdo Calocane, a man diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, was discharged from specialist mental health services nine months before he killed three people in a rampage across the city.

On June 13, 2023, Calocane, a former University of Nottingham mechanical engineering student, stabbed to death students Barnaby Webber and Grace O'Malley Kumar, both 19, on Ilkeston Road in Radford. He then killed school caretaker Ian Coates, 65, on Magdala Road in Mapperley, stole his van and struck three pedestrians in the city center. The attacks unfolded within 90 minutes.

The inquiry, chaired by senior judge Deborah Taylor, examined Calocane's care under Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust's Early Intervention in Psychosis service, where he had been a patient for about two years until his discharge in September 2022. A consultant psychiatrist had previously warned that Calocane could become violent if his condition worsened, or that he would ultimately kill someone.

Emma Robinson, then team leader for the service's City South team, told the inquiry on Tuesday that staff had lost contact with Calocane after his last phone...