Triple killer put flatmate in headlock in assault

Triple killer Valdo Calocane put his university flatmate in a headlock after being asked to clean up his mess in their shared bathroom, less than two years before he carried out the Nottingham attacks, a public inquiry has heard.

Calocane went on to kill Ian Coates, Barnaby Webber and Grace O'Malley-Kumar and seriously injure three others in the attacks on 13 June 2023.

In January 2022, Calocane assaulted his former flatmate - known only as Christopher - then stopped him from leaving their accommodation.

On Thursday, the public inquiry also heard how months before the attacks, police took "no steps" to execute a warrant for Calocane's arrest that was still outstanding on the day of the attacks.

The inquiry, led by retired judge Deborah Taylor, is examining the events that led up to the attacks.

More than 100 witnesses, including police officers and mental health workers - who Calocane was known to - are giving evidence over the next eight weeks.

Calocane was a mature student at the University of Nottingham when he became mentally unwell, and was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in July 2020.

He moved into private student accommodation Raleigh Park in Lenton, Nottingham - where Christopher and other students lived - in October 2021.

Giving evidence to the inquiry, Christopher said Calocane was initially "very quiet" and "kept to himself".

However, he said between December 2021 and the following January, Calocane's behaviour deteriorated, becoming more withdrawn.

Christopher added flatmates also raised concerns amongst themselves about the state Calocane was leaving one of the two shared bathrooms in the accommodation.

On 15 January 2022, Christopher confronted Calocane and asked him to clean the bathroom but he "brushed it off" and went into his room.

Later that day, Christopher asked Calocane again if he had cleaned up.

"He said 'no I'm not going to, what are you going to do about it?'," Christopher told the hearing.

"That upset me and I thought it was rude so I said 'I will call you a dirty [expletive]."

It was shortly after that he was assaulted.

"He came flying across the room, threw a punch, I dodged the punch and then we were wrestling," he said.

"He ended up getting me in a headlock and then I was asking him 'please let go of me, let go of me'."

In a short video clip shown to the inquiry, Calocane could be seen with his arm around the neck of his flatmate, holding him in a headlock while Christopher was heard asking for someone to "ring the police".

Other flatmates could also be heard saying "Valdo, stop it".

Calocane eventually let go and Christopher called the police, but shortly after, Calocane stopped him from leaving the flat.

In a second video played to the inquiry, Christopher could be heard saying "I just want to go" and "he ain't gonna let me leave for some reason".

He then made a second call to the police.

Christopher told the inquiry Calocane looked at him "intensely" following the assault.

"I found it very unsettling, very unusual," he said.

"That was perhaps what distressed me the most - is that I felt I could not relate and I couldn't see what he was thinking," he said.

The inquiry heard Calocane was not arrested or charged in relation to that incident and Christopher believed pursuing a conviction would be a "waste of time".

Christopher said when police initially attended, he was told by an officer: "You don't have enough for ABH because you don't have any real injuries, this is going to be common assault".

He told the inquiry: "I felt like it was dismissive in a way, trying to basically tell me that nothing was going to happen."

After informing the University of Nottingham about the incident, on 18 January, Christopher and the other flatmates were assisted in leaving the accommodation - "creeping out" as Calocane slept.

The inquiry heard the students were told Calocane was "getting the care he needs" following the incident.

The statement of another of Calocane's flatmates - known only as Sam - was read to the inquiry.

When Sam first heard about the Nottingham attacks, he thought Calocane might have been responsible, he said.

He added in his statement: "I felt shocked when I found out about the attacks - it didn't feel real at first," he said.

"It's not something you expect to be close to. I was annoyed at the whole situation

"I've now watched the documentaries - we weren't aware of his medical history.

"The whole picture looks a lot different from what we knew at that time."

The inquiry heard, following that assault, Calocane was eventually charged a year later and summonsed to appear at Nottingham Magistrates' Court, but as he was in hospital at the time, he failed to appear.

The warrant was initially assigned to an officer who was out of work for several months, the inquiry heard.

The inquiry was shown a draft press briefing which had been emailed by Matthew Jarram, a senior media and external relations manager at the force, to others, including Myers, following Calocane's sentencing in January 2024.

One of the suggestions about how to respond to the media in relation to the warrant said: "We were unable to locate him [Calocane] due to his nomadic lifestyle".

However, Myers told the inquiry he took "no steps" to execute that warrant, and had not looked at the file to see "what steps had or hadn't been taken".

Sophie Cartwright KC - representing the survivors of the attacks - asked Myers: "At any point were you providing an account to suggest that VC had a nomadic lifestyle or that was the reason for why the warrant was not executed?"

Myers told the hearing in the months that followed the warrant he had been diverted to deal with shoplifting problems in Clifton in Nottingham, which he said took "our entire team's efforts".

When asked how long that took by the inquiry's chair, Taylor, he said the shoplifting operation lasted until May 2024.

Taylor asked: "So you weren't doing anything else other than shoplifting from a week after January 2023 to May 2024?"

"Apart from force commitments, i.e. football, that look our team's entire focus," Myers replied.

Questioning Myers, John Beggs KC, representing Nottinghamshire Police, said: "The shoplifting to which you were directed, is this right, it was a form of industrial organised criminal shoplifting?

Myers replied: "Yes, it was."

Beggs added: "Because it mustn't be trivialised. Sometimes shoplifting is seen as trivial, but this wasn't trivial."

Myers also told the inquiry he had "assumed" a team from another police station would be dealing with the warrant.

He said due to the heavy workload, he would not seek an update on the case "unless I get tasked to do something with that said file".

"I haven't got time to look at whole jobs just on a bit of a whim to see what may or may not have happened at court," he said.

However, he accepted "efforts should have been made, plain and simple".