Triple killer Valdo Calocane locked up in ‘cushy’ hospital where patients play pool and can grow their own plants
TRIPLE killer Valdo Calocane has been locked up inside a hospital where another notorious killer boasted of having a “cushy” life.
Calocane pleaded guilty to manslaughter by diminished responsibility for killing Grace O’Malley-Kumar, Barnaby Webber, and Ian Coates in the horrifying Nottingham rampage.
He will be indefinitely detained in Ashworth Hospital – where cop killer Dale Cregan said in 2016 he had a “cushy” life.
Sources previously described to The Sun Cregan’s lifestyle at the hospital as like a “holiday camp”.
Cregan said: “It’s not ideal but it beats sitting on the block miles from home innit bro. Gym, phone call and a visit and I’m happy brother.”
The hospital can house up to 228 patients on 14 wards – costing taxpayers around £300,000 a year each.
The patients, most of whom have paranoid schizophrenia, are individually monitored 24 hours a day.
In an emotional statement outside Nottingham Crown Court, Barnaby’s mother, Emma Webber, said Calocane had got away with murder by avoiding prison.
“We were horrified. At no point in the previous five and a half months were we given any indication that this could conclude in anything other than murder.
“We trusted in our system, foolishly as it turns out. We do not dispute that the murderer is mentally unwell and has been for a number of years.”
Calocane won’t be bored in the NHS-run hospital as patients are allowed musical instruments – including guitars, saxophones and harmonica.
Patients can also pass the time playing pool and snooker and indulge in arts and crafts.
Rooms have their own shower and can be decorated with plants and toys, like Lego.
Ashworth is far more relaxed than if Calocane was placed into a high-security prison – where the victims’ families said he should go.
She was a gift to us, she was a gift to the country
Dr Sanjay Kumar - father of Grace
Patients are even permitted to hug and kiss visiting relatives, hold their hands and pose for pictures – something the families of the victims will never be able to do again.
One-eyed drug lord Cregan once wrote a letter about Ashworth, boasting about making pizza, playing pool and getting “ripped” at the hospital just outside Liverpool.
He wrote to pals in 2016: “I’m good bro just smashing the gym and playing snooker you know how it goes.
“Been doin’ pure circuits on the ward. You know you got your a**e kicked at snooker and tennis you had me at the kayaking tho bro (ha ha).
“Looking forward to making a pizza that will be my treat every week.
“I’m only 12st 3 now bro fit and pretty ripped I’ll be in sick shape in the next 6 weeks bro.”
Cregan murdered two gangland rivals – Mark Short, 23, and his dad David, 46, in Manchester in 2012 before going on the run.
He then lured Greater Manchester Police’s PCs Fiona Bone, 31, and Nicola Hughes, 23, to his bolt-hole and launched a gun and grenade ambush on them.
Ian Brady was also confined to Ashworth Hospital after being convicted of the Moors murders.
Brady was incarcerated in Ashworth in 1985 until his death aged 79 in 2017.
‘IT WAS QUITE RELAXED’
The sister of a man detained inside Ashworth says she thought visiting the hospital would be like a prison on TV.
“I was quite apprehensive going there and everything, I wasn’t sure how it would be, being a high secure service.
“It as nothing like that, it was quite relaxed when I got there, it just wasn’t how I thought it would be.”
In an educational video recorded by the NHS, she demonstrates what a visit to Ashworth is like.
The video shows the woman going through a metal detector, also being searched, and sniffed by a drug dog.
She eventually sees her brother in a visitor’s building – warmly decorated with carpet and serviced by a tuck shop,
Last year Mersey Care NHS revealed a new ‘life rooms’ centre had opened up in the hospital.
Images shared show comfortable sofas where patients can lounge, and a kitchen including cooker and hob for their use.
It also featured computer rooms, with dozens of screens for patients to enjoy.
A spokesman wrote: “It will provide extensive social support and educational sessions to patients needing a highly secure environment for the first time in history.”
NOTTINGHAM RAMPAGE
Calocane’s rampage began just after 4am on June 13 as Grace and Barnaby walked back to their halls from a night out.
Poignant footage showed the students chatting to each other unaware that the killer was lurking in the shadows waiting to pounce.
An onlooker said he peered out his window to see a man dressed in black stabbing a young man, before attacking the woman.
Calocane then tried to break in to a supported living complex in Mapperley Road, but was punched by a resident.
The killer then went to the north of the city and stole a white Vauxhall Vivara van killing its driver – Ian Coates.
He then tried to run over three people on Milton Street, leaving a man in critical condition.
Calocane then abandoned the van and approached officers with a knife on Maple Street.
University student Kane Brady claimed he heard gunshots around 5.30am before seeing Calocane being arrested after his horror spree.
Dr Sanjoy Kumar, the father of Grace, paid tribute to his “gift” of a daughter.
The devastated father said that her family will “never come to terms” with her loss and how she died.
“She was a gift to us, she was a gift to the country,” he said.
Dr Kumar said Grace’s family have never questioned Calocane’s diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia.
But the heartbroken father said there were “missed opportunities” to “divert [Calocane’s] lethal calls” that will “forever play on our minds”.
“We will look for answers regarding missed opportunities to intervene and prevent this horrendous crime,” he said.
The first was in May of that year – Calocane went to hospital believing he was having a heart attack and later was arrested for causing damage to a door when returning to his flat.
He was diagnosed a paranoid schizophrenic and it would mark a three-year journey where he evaded mental health support and allegedly abused people close to him.
While off his meds in July 2020, he tried to break into a neighbour’s flat and threatened its occupants.
In May 2021, Calocane visited MI5 HQ in London and asked them to “stop controlling him” and “please arrest me”.
Calocane allegedly assaulted an officer in September 2021 when they had a warrant for a mental health assessment.
He failed to attend court in September and a neighbour said he wasn’t living at the address he listed when discharged.
Five weeks before he killed the three, he attacked two coworkers at his workplace at a warehouse in Leicestershire.
Despite being wanted for nine months in Nottingham, he then carried out the horrific attack on June 13, 2023.
Timeline of Nottingham attack
13 June: Just before 4pm, Calocane was hiding in bushes before stabbing Grace and Barnaby to death.
4.04am – Police were called to Illkeston Road and find the pair unresponsive.
4.08am – Calocane tried to break into the Mapperley Road share complex before he was punched in the face.
5am – A passerby dials 999 and police arrive to Magdela Road to find Ian Coates dead with knife injuries.
5.30am – Calocane uses the stolen van to drive at three people on Milton Street, leaving one in a critical condition.
Police taser and arrest Calocane after he runs at them with a knife.
