Going psycho - Nottingham killer Valdo Calocane shows us that ‘mental health awareness’ has damaged the understanding of mental illness and mental healthcare.

The main criminals must not escape justice.

Preface: Apologies for a lengthy absence from publishing! The fact it’s taken me several months to finish this substack article illustrates one of the central points made in the piece. As so often in my life mental and physical illness has somewhat gained control of me. But going through an especially tough last couple of months has also made me even more determined to never stop raising awareness of the misunderstandings around mental illness as well as the serious failings in mental healthcare. There are no subjects I care about more so thank you for listening/reading!

   One of my first substacks was called ‘The problem of mental health problems: Struggling with life versus mental illness.’ An edited version of this, under the title ‘The difference between life problems and mental illness,’ became my first ever published article on an online news media website. Nine months later I wrote a piece titled, ‘The widespread hypocrisy on mental health: mental health awareness is actually obscuring true mental illness.’ That was inspired by a BBC Panorama expose revealing appalling abuse of patients by staff at Manchester’s Edenfield mental health clinic. I didn’t want to write another piece on essentially the same subject – i.e. how our virtue signalling ‘#mentalhealthawareness culture’ has set back the understanding of true mental illness. But then along came the horrific case of Valdo Calocane, ‘the Nottingham killer’ - a man with incredibly severe paranoid schizophrenia who stabbed three people to death and seriously injured three others. Because Calocane was determined by no less than five eminent psychiatrists to have been in an acute psychotic state whilst committing the crimes, the judge at his trial gave him a sentence of diminished responsibility manslaughter with an indefinite secure hospital order. However the words ‘monster’, ‘evil’ and ‘murderer’ persist, both in the media and general public discourse. The families of the victims have lead the way in using this language and insisted that, contrary to all the expert analysis, Calocane was fully responsible for his horrific crimes. At first I thought this was just coming from a very understandable desire to blame and for revenge. I’m sure if someone killed one of those closest to me I would want stark revenge and indeed hate the killer with every fibre of my being. Yet when I heard the mother of one of the killed victims Barnaby Webber interviewed it seemed to me that she doesn’t understand what schizophrenia or psychosis are at all. She also used the phrase I have railed against in so much of my campaigning and writing, ‘mental health problems.’

   As I have said in my previous writing , the ‘#mentalhealthawareness industry’ has now convinced many people that every life stress – for examples exams, relationship breakups, a difficult boss, workplace bullying - is a ‘mental health problem’.  Moreover when many think of ‘mental health’ they now think of a flawless looking celebrity on the This Morning sofa rather than someone who is so clinically depressed they haven’t even been able to wash for months. So of course they can’t accept that the ‘mental health problems’ society presents to us are in any way even a partial explanation for something as horrific as brutally killing and injuring others. If the latest hot ‘ex Love Island/Big Brother/Celebs go camping’ star to reveal they have anxiety, (which they manage with yoga and goji berry kale smoothies), bought a knife and stabbed three people to death most of us would be pretty sceptical that their mental health was any type of mitigating factor. However mental illness, and in particular psychosis, is in a totally different universe to what has popularly become known as ‘mental health problems’, ‘struggling with mental health’ or ‘bad mental health.’

  I don’t know whether Calocane is a bad man or not. But in his sentencing Justice Turner clearly stated that according to expert opinion he would not have committed those horrific crimes if he had not been so incredibly ill and above all psychotic. That expert opinion was given to the Judge by five very experienced psychiatrists. One of these, Dr McSweeney, is worth quoting at length:

‘His history of mental illness and his own explanation of the offences indicate that he was experiencing hallucinatory voices, persecutory delusional beliefs among other psychotic symptoms. He was under the false impression that his thoughts and actions were under the control of artificial intelligence and that his family may be in grave danger. By definition a person experiencing acute psychosis is not able to accurately test reality or distinguish reality from an abnormal perception. It seems likely that Mr Calocane’s decision making was largely governed by his psychotic experiences. It is my opinion that Mr Calocane’s abnormality of mental functioning significantly contributed to his perpetrating the alleged offences. That is to say that in my view had he not been labouring under symptoms of accuse psychosis which resulted in his interpretation of reality being grossly distorted he would not have perpetrated the acts.’

None of us can look into Valdo Calocane’s heart and soul. But the evidence presented at the trial proving diminished responsibility and showing no history of any violence or even aggression before the onset of his mental illness contradicts the depiction of him as a ‘monster.’ Of course it’s difficult for many to square Calocane not being some kind of demon in human form with the abject horror of his, to quote Justice Turner, ‘sickening crimes.’ The judge spelt these out in disturbingly graphic detail. ‘None of the evidence of your mental state detracts from the horror of your actions or the disastrous impact they have had on so many people.’ Yet for me the societal impact of the way these horrific crimes are being regarded also extends far beyond those directly impacted by them. The Calocane case has lodged into popular consciousness that psychosis is no ‘excuse’ or even mitigating factor in doing something bad. Indeed perhaps for some psychosis itself seems to be a sign of a rotten soul.

  However suffering from psychosis has nothing to do with being an inherently violent or ‘bad’ person. I haven’t always felt like that could be true. After all how could a good person attack her caring, loving mother, on one occasion with a knife? Yet that is what I did. It has taken me around 25 years to admit that to anyone beyond my sister and a few therapists. That’s not as ‘#mentalhealthawareness PR friendly’ as talking about feeling low or socially anxious or being obsessed with cleaning. This may be controversial but in my opinion it’s also far more taboo than talking about suicidal ideation or even attempted suicide. A month or so ago Conservative MP Elliot Colburn stood up in the House of Commons and bravely talked about his suicide attempt. Yet it would have been impossible for him or any other MP to be as candid about a psychotic episode, especially one in which they were violent.

   But can psychosis really ever be a type of mitigating factor in harming someone, let alone regarding crimes as horrific as those of Valdo Calacone? As one of the psychiatrists who assessed Calocane for the trial said, psychosis means an inability to distinguish what is real from what isn’t. Hallucinations, delusional beliefs, often hearing voices, irrational urges, chaotic thinking and at the heart of it all – fear. One of the psychiatrists in giving evidence to the trial said Calcocane feared his family were in grave danger. Indeed he rang his brother after he had brutally killed Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley Kumar to tell his family to leave the country because he feared for their safety. That alone shows both suggests he is not a psychopath and secondly it proves his delusional psychotic state. Emma Webber, whom I of course have the utmost compassion for in her tragic bereavement, has made a great deal in media interviews of  the ‘calculating’ and ‘premeditated’ nature of Calocane’s actions.

“We do not dispute the murderer is mentally unwell and has been for a number of years. However the pre-mediated planning, the collection of lethal weapons, hiding in the shadows and brutality of the attacks are that of an individual who knew exactly what he was doing. He knew entirely that it was wrong but he did it anyway.”https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/25/nottingham-killer-valdo-calocane-sentencing-triple-stabbing/

“He’s a calculating monster and a murderer,” Emma says. “He is unwell. There are clear failings in his treatment in the past. But for this grievous, heinous crime, he knew what he was doing. He’s a murderer. He planned it. He wasn’t low to zero on the culpability. How there can be no penal element to what he did is beyond me.”https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/nottingham-attack-victims-mother-interview-gdppcs6vd

However psychosis does not mean losing the ability to plan. Emma Webber seems not to understand that being psychotic means that you’re in a totally altered state of being, detached from reality rather than being incapacitated so as to prohibit performing tasks or planning. Psychosis means being incapable of forming rational judgements not being incapable of premeditation. The best description I heard was from a  sufferer who spoke of the world suddenly becoming a video game in which you have to fight for survival and all the rules of real life don’t apply. I find it baffling that in her interview with The Times on 8^th March Emma Webber and Grace’s mother Sinead O’Malley Kumar seem to suggest that all five psychiatrists who assessed Calocane for his trial had some kind of agenda to get him into hospital with a manslaughter sentence rather than prison for murder. ‘I think they saw his paranoid schizophrenia diagnosis and thought, “OK, that easily fits.” It was accepted too easily . . .  I feel like it’s a statistic. A cheaper, easier win. I know it’s contentious to say it. However, I’ve lost my precious son, so I feel entitled to have that opinion.’

In that Times article Mrs Webber also says she believes that the legal and medical fraternity ‘closed ranks.’ No one has more experience of the medical profession closing ranks to cover up malpractice than me. I have extensively written about my own experiences of this, some of which involved me very nearly dying. However I struggle to see what possible reason there could be for such a grand conspiracy to misrepresent Calocane’s mental state and culpability. ‘Ok that easily fits’, could equally be applied to labelling him a monster and putting him in prison for murder. That would have certainly been the easier ‘fit’ when it came to public opinion. It’s also far more expensive to keep such a high risk, violent man in a secure hospital than it is to house any murderer in prison. The truth is prisons are not even capable of dealing with someone as ill as Calocane. He would be an unacceptable risk to staff and fellow inmates and providing him with the necessary mediation/treatment would be impossible. Being released from a secure hospital when under a ‘Mental Health Act Section 41’ is far more difficult than being released early from prison. Furthermore if he were ever allowed out of a prison, even for hours or days, he would not be required to stay in contact with specialist mental health services. That is obviously an unacceptable risk to the public. It’s also a fact, whether much of public accepts it or not, that highly secure mental health institutions are harsher environments than prisons. I’ve been in several secure clinics for lengthy stretches and despite the inpatients not being criminals we had less freedom and fewer basic comforts than prisoners. The lawyer my mother had to seek advice from to get me out of one particular hellish unit knew this very well. Therefore the ‘penal element’ that Emma Webber talks about is there for Valdo Calocane in the most visceral way. And again, the crucial point is surely that he is far less likely to be leave that secure hospital facility in his lifetime than if he were in even the highest security prison. Section 41 of the Mental Health Act means the Secretary of State for Justice has to agree to any type of release. What politician is ever going to do something that will incur a lethal firestorm of fury from most of the public?

   But of equal concern to me alongside the lack of understanding around serious mental illness is that the ultimate villains are being let off the hook. One reason I consider it ridiculous to propose that there was a conspiracy amongst the psychiatrists who gave evidence at Calocane’s trial ridiculous is that their unanimous conclusions utterly damn NHS mental health services. Their assessments made it clear that this was a seriously ill man who should have had intensive long term inpatient treatment to help him and keep the public safe from him. However NHS mental healthcare failed in the most serious way and with the most serious consequences imaginable. Valdo Calocane was detained and sectioned under the Mental Health Act four times before he went on his atrocious killing rampage. Each time there was a record of violent behaviour. He was sectioned the first time in May 2020 for breaking down the doors of two apartments in his block. In July 2020, less than a month after he was discharged, he stopped taking his medication and broke into another apartment leading to another hospitalisation. However he was discharged just a few weeks later to be treated in the community by a psychosis team. In May 2021 his family informed mental health services that his severe symptoms had returned, that he was having delusions and hearing voices telling him his family would die. Calocane’s family even told them that he was trying to conceal his psychosis from medical professionals and had stopped taking his medication. It took the mental health team until September to take any action, issuing a warrant to search his property. They found eight months worth of untaken medication and Valdo himself was behaving in a hostile manner. After he was then sectioned again, he assaulted one of the police officers involved in transporting him to Highbury Hospital in Nottingham. He was only held for a month and after his release in October he often displayed aggression and missed mental health appointments. In January 2022 an altercation with a flatmate and failing to engage with the community mental healthcare team lead to him being sectioned yet again, but only for three weeks. It was later discovered that it was around this time that Calocane started buying weapons after hearing frightening voices telling him to kill people. In May he travelled to MI5 HQ in London, believing that the security agency was controlling him, and asked to be arrested. In July he was prompted to collect his medication by the community mental health services but he lied that he was out of the country. When someone from that mental health team finally visited his last known address they discovered he no longer lived there. When on 22^nd September he failed to attend court for the assault of a police officer a year earlier in September 2021 a warrant was issued for his arrest. That warrant was still outstanding in July 2023, ten months on from the missed court hearing, when Valdo Calocane savagely killed Barnaby Webber, Grace O’Malley-Kumar and Ian Coates and brutally injured three others.

  In 2016 my mental illness lead to my weight plummeting, my heart failing and I was detained in a clinic for 6 months. I wasn’t a threat to anyone, not even myself because I desperately wanted to gain weight  I just needed the right physical and mental healthcare support. I never so much as shouted, let alone displayed aggression, yet I wasn’t allowed to go to the bathroom without supervision, (nor sleep unwatched for months), and for a long time wasn’t even allowed to venture outside for fresh air. The NHS seems to have no problem locking up people with an ‘eating disorder’ label for months and even years on end in conditions that make most prisons look as comfortable and free in comparison. Yet a man such as Valdo Calocane was never held for longer than a few weeks at a time, even after multiple and ongoing instances of violence, clearly posing a threat to others and being unwilling to engage with mental health services.

  There is rot at the heart of NHS mental healthcare and it’s not simply down to underfunding of community services, as big a problem as that is. Once I managed to discharge myself from the inpatient unit in 2017 I had a few months of aftercare from the Eating Disorders community team. However when they realised that my diagnosis was not in fact an eating disorder they discharged me back to my GP and the utterly negligent ‘care’ started. I have had periods of six months and even a whole year without any contact from anyone in NHS mental healthcare. Of course lockdowns and turning the NHS into the National Covid Service made this even worse. I actually do understand why someone suffering from delusions such as Calocane would ditch their prescribed psychiatric medication, nearly all of which has horrible, disabling side effects, and just try and go it alone. It shouldn’t be the patient’s responsibility to continually chase up and struggle to obtain even basic treatment. But in my case I was abandoned even despite my constant fight to be treated. After some awful experiences with Bedford mental healthcare, (including my support worker forgetting at least two appointments), I asked to be transferred to the Milton Keynes Trust. That referral request was made in February 2023. Over a year on I’ve now finally got an appointment to see a psychiatrist in April and I have started some group therapy. After my mother had a meltdown at the GP receptionist they ‘red flagged’ me so I now get a phone call every few months to literally check I’m alive. If I didn’t live with my amazing mother who is my full time carer and sole support system I wouldn’t be. Even if people like me aren’t worth the NHS’s time you might think that a paranoid, violent, clearly dangerous man with schizophrenia would be. You’d think they’d at least be worried about the consequences for their jobs if something went tragically wrong. But there are no consequences for negligent NHS medics. The lack of consequences, not for Calocane but for those in the mental health services, who are arguably more responsible for his horrific crimes than he is, should be everyone’s main concern coming from that horrendous case. If we don’t want this tragedy to be repeated on and on ALL the villains, those we clapped for during the pandemic, need to be put in the dock. Delivering those consequences and that justice is the only way both people with mental illness and the general public can be safe.