A knifeman who killed two students and a caretaker during a rampage across Nottingham city centre is facing jail. Valdo Calocane’s manslaughter plea was accepted, a court hearing today has ruled.
Calocane, 31, knifed students Grace O’Malley-Kumar and Baranby Webber, as well as school caretaker Ian Coates to death on June 13 last year.
Calocane’s barrister Peter Joyce KC told a previous hearing the defendant “does not dispute the physical facts of the prosecution’s case” but was suffering from “extreme” mental illness at the time of the incident.
The horrific attacks unfolded when Calocane knifed Miss O’Malley-Kumar and Mr Webber to death, who were studying medicine and history at the University of Nottingham respectively, on Ilkeston Road at around 4am on June 13.
Grace and Barney’s bodies were found in the street just 300 yards from their halls of residence on Ilkeston Road.
Fearless Grace put herself between the attacker and her friend in a desperate attempt to save him.
Mr Coates was then found dead in Magdala Road around an hour later, having also been stabbed “repeatedly”.
The defendant then used Mr Coates’ van to drive at three pedestrians, Wayne Birkett, Marcin Gawronski and Sharon Miller, in Milton Street and South Sherwood Street. They all survived the attack.
Calocane, who appeared in the dock wearing a dark suit and light blue shirt, now faces a sentencing hearing expected to last for around two days.
A huge vigil was held in Nottingham just days after the three lost their lives in the gruesome rampage.
Grace’s family remembered their “beautiful baby girl” and said that she was studying to become a doctor like her dad.
They also praised the “truly wonderful young lady” who would be “so dearly missed”.
Meanwhile, Barney’s mum said: “My beautiful, beautiful boy, you have mine, your dad and your brother’s heart forever.”
Mr Coates’s sons also praised their dad and sported the shirt of their father’s beloved Nottingham Forest – each of which had “R.I.P Dad” printed on the back.
A knifeman who killed two students and a caretaker during a rampage across Nottingham city centre is facing jail. Valdo Calocane’s manslaughter plea was accepted, a court hearing today has ruled.
Calocane, 31, knifed students Grace O’Malley-Kumar and Baranby Webber, as well as school caretaker Ian Coates to death on June 13 last year.
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