A student broke her back after leaping 10ft from a window to escape Valdo Calocane in May 2020, three years before he fatally stabbed three people in Nottingham, a public inquiry heard.
Feven, identified only by her first name, fractured her vertebrae and required surgery after jumping from her flat when the paranoid schizophrenic attempted to kick down her door. She was 22 years old at the time of the attack.
Police visited her a week after hospital discharge and told her: “They told me I had been very brave. If I had not jumped out of the window many things could have happened to me – they said he could have killed me or he could have been violent.”
Despite this assessment, officers advised Feven that Calocane had been sectioned but “could not be jailed” due to mental health problems. Speaking through an interpreter, she stated: “I was very upset, because the damage he had caused is going to be forever… When they told me he was not going to be prosecuted, I felt disappointed, very angry.”
The attack came just 45 minutes after Calocane, now 34, had been released by police for trying to break into another neighbour’s property earlier that same day. He had been arrested on suspicion of criminal damage and taken into custody where a psychiatric nurse said he was “hearing voices” and appeared to be suffering from psychosis.
However, a mental health team decided not to section him after looking at research evidence showing the “over-representation of young black males in detention,” the inquiry heard. He was released and attacked Feven 45 minutes later.
The inquiry heard there is nothing in police logs to suggest the two attacks were ever formally linked. Inspector Katie Eustace, who arrested Calocane over the first incident, told the hearing she “cannot find” her body-worn footage on the force’s computer system despite marking it for retention.
When asked by inquiry barrister Julian Blake whether she thought the case had “been given the attention it deserved,” Eustace responded: “No, I don’t think it was.”
PC Richard Marsden, who attended the attack on Feven and visited her after hospital discharge, denied telling her it “could have been much worse.” However, when asked by inquiry chairwoman Deborah Taylor if police should have linked the incident with the earlier criminal damage, he responded: “They should, yes.”
On 13 June 2023, Calocane fatally stabbed students Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar, both 19, and school caretaker Ian Coates, 65, before attempting to run down three pedestrians. He was convicted of manslaughter on grounds of diminished responsibility and handed an indefinite hospital order in January 2024.
The inquiry continues and will report back in full next year.
