Valdo Calocane gets hospital order- Families of the victims are angry about it

I accept for some people it's the only 'safe' place and and a necessary evil in society, but the idea that any right thinking person would find it any way comfy or a nice holiday is disingenuous bordering on outrageous and had to be challenged.

For all the people that label these sort of institutions as comfy or holiday camps, none of them ever seem to want to go themselves, even if it's free.

I agree. I don’t trust the healthcare system that much in this country anyway so for me personally, going to any type of hospital won’t be a comfy experience.

I can get that, I've mostly had good exp in hospitals but even then I'd struggle to call it comfy despite their genuine efforts. But the huge difference is that assuming your own body hasn't failed you, you can decide to simply leave and not come back, and if you reach out your hand to shake a member of staffs hand, half a dozen people won't bend you up as a threat, your friends and family can visit you and bring flowers and sweets at any standard visiting time without everyone being searched or having to be approved by the Home Office or whoever.

My huge fear would be the people. In a normal hospital and even to an extent a prison, the people around you will be mostly rational, sure they might be jerks, make bad choices, commit crimes or be generally nasty and even violent people, but you can be confident the vast majority are rational, as opposed to someone who will quietly try and stab you in the night because they're convinced you're their abusive step dad who has always had it in for them...

There’s range of new sources covering the story:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-68087302

Some argue that the police could have been done more and that this a failure in the UK’s justice system.

UPDATE: The sentencing is to be reviewed (https://news.sky.com/story/nottingham-killer-valdo-calocanes-lenient-sentence-being-reviewed-by-attorney-general-13056485)

"Police could have done more"

Love it.

People have not the faintest idea how these things work.

A person like this can (and often is) walking around the streets waving a sword shouting that he wants to kill God. Police have absolutely zero means to do anything about this post initial intervention. Police take all the risk, confront the person, who then gets detained and probably sectioned. At that point, they are handed over to our precious NHS mental health services, who will most likely keep them in for a few days at the very most, before deeming them fit to be back out on the street. If they feel like it, they might send police an email to let them know that he's back out.

"Known to police" means just that. He had previously been stopped / sectioned / arrested / whatever. At best, the person will be on a powerpoint slide somewhere. There is no power at all to do anything more than that.

If you had any idea how many of these dangerous lunatics there are out there, armed and ready to kill, you would probably never leave the house again. Around Central London, Westminster especially, these people are there every single day.

I personally think the public and families of the victims have the right to be upset and angry with the police in this case and MHS in this case.

I personally think the public and families of the victims have the right to be upset and angry with the police in this case and MHS in this case.

I will rarely agree with @Trinculo and say there are big limits to what the police can and will do outside of an incident. They've been screaming for years that their officers are having to ineffectively fill gaps in mental health provisions that they just aren't trained and resourced for.

I do feel in these occasions it's possible to try and spread blame too far and essentially blame 3rd parties for the actions of a directly blameable individual who actually did the thing.

What would you suggest the police should have done differently?

I personally don’t know but maybe (they and MHS) could have done more to prevent the man from being out on street (if he was known before) or done better to help him with his MH issues.

https://news.sky.com/story/nottingham-attacks-timeline-of-missed-opportunities-to-stop-killer-valdo-calocane-13055744

I personally don’t know but maybe (they and MHS) could have done more to prevent the man from being out on street (if he was known before) or done better to help him with his MH issues.

https://news.sky.com/story/nottingham-attacks-timeline-of-missed-opportunities-to-stop-killer-valdo-calocane-13055744

That is entirely out of the remit of the police.

What you are doing here is imagining a different world and blaming police because that world doesn’t exist.

This isn’t a case of “not my job”, it’s a case of “that is specifically the job of this other named agency”. If your central heating breaks down, you don’t berate your car mechanic.

In the case of the police I'm honesty not sure what more they could have done, the most I think you could accuse them of is missing a minor outstanding warrant from another force (Nottingham) and I don't think that would have changed the result, it would just be one more occasion where he was brought in, processed and theoretically released back into the mental health caseloads.

(I suppose it's possible he would have been remanded to prison for the non appearance, but doubtful if he was already in MH service care, and again that wouldn't be the police's choice, and well... if remanded there's every chance he'd still have killed, the public just wouldn't have cared as much)

As Trinculo says the police are only really involved in the incidents and investigation, everything after that is out of their hands. When push comes to shove if someone is having a proper psychotic/delusion breakdown the police haven't really got much options beyond locking you in a holding cell to howl like an animal all night and bang your head off the walls or offloading you to another service ASAP, this is what I mean by saying they aren't resourced for it, they've literally nowhere appropriate to put someone in such a state.

I personally not blaming the police (despite my lack of confidence in them). Some members of the public (not me personally) in general are upset at both the police and MHS services and believe that they could have done more and I can understand their frustration as another user has mentioned.


Yeah the mother says the Nottingham Police Chief has “blood on his hands” but I don’t think he’s the main problem honestly.

Yeah that's the sort of blame I see as getting out of proportion, but in the case of a grieving family no one is really allowed to tell them to stop and the police and health services make easy targets to vent at as they're not really allowed to defend themselves in these circumstances, they need to just nod and take it.

I personally not blaming the police (despite my lack of confidence in them). Some members of the public (not me personally) in general are upset at both the police and MHS services and believe that they could have done more and I can understand their frustration as another user has mentioned.


Yeah the mother says the Nottingham Police Chief has “blood on his hands” but I don’t think he’s the main problem honestly.

This is the way it always is.

“I accept that there is no more that could have been done - but it’s still your fault”

Does it occur to you that your general lack of confidence might also be similarly misplaced?

Concane? How does that even sound like Calocane?

I don’t necessarily think that the police are at fault here (not for me to judge here) but I can understand people’s frustration.

No, I simply don’t have that much faith in the police in this country. Doesn’t mean that I’ll disrespect the police or anything but there’s things that I don’t have that much faith in, the NHS (in some contexts) and the police being some of those things and the Government of course.

Again, as always.

Frustration with police = police at fault

Frustration with NHS = government at fault.

Nothing is ever the fault of the NHS. Our immaculate, perfect national religion. People need to wake up and realise that the NHS should be a source of national shame, not pride.