Police watchdog staff are being investigated over allegations they told officers being probed over failures around the 2023 Nottingham stabbings the inquiry was “politically motivated”.
Investigators from the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) are said to have told Leicestershire Police officers who failed to arrest Valdo Calocane a month before he killed three people that their disciplinary case was “being driven by the families of the victims”, according to The Times.
The officers, who did not arrest the triple killer for assault even though he was wanted on a warrant for not attending a court hearing relating to previous violence, claim they were told they would get off with “words of advice or reflective practice”, the newspaper added.
Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar, both 19, were fatally stabbed as they walked home from a night out in Nottingham in the early hours of June 13 2023 by Calocane, who went on to kill 65-year-old caretaker Ian Coates and attempt to kill three others.
Calocane admitted three counts of manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility and three counts of attempted murder and was sentenced to an indefinite hospital order.
The officers have made a complaint about the conduct of the IOPC investigators who interviewed them initially, The Times reported.
An IOPC spokesperson said: “We are aware of allegations made about IOPC staff by Leicestershire police officers who are subjects of an IOPC investigation.
“The allegations involved comments alleged to have been made about that investigation.
“We are treating this matter extremely seriously and have commissioned an external party to investigate them alongside other complaints about the investigation made by the families of the victims.
“We will continue to provide the families with regular updates as these matters progress.”
The IOPC previously prepared a report which concluded that officers failed to properly investigate an assault on warehouse workers by Calocane in May 2023 which could have stopped his murder spree a month later.
In March, the watchdog said it will reinvestigate whether Calocane’s previous history and an outstanding arrest warrant were seen by officers before the investigation was closed down.
The report’s findings, seen by the PA news agency, led to a misconduct meeting being arranged rather than a more serious misconduct hearing for three Leicestershire Police officers, meaning they would have faced a maximum of a final written warning.
Calocane was reported to have punched a man in the face and pushed a woman over at a warehouse in Kegworth on May 5 2023, a month before he killed his three victims.
It is understood that the staff who are alleged to have made the comments would not have made decisions about whether the officers had a case to answer, nor would they have any sway on what sanctions might have been imposed were disciplinary proceedings to go ahead. They are also no longer working on the case.
Emma Webber, Mr Webber’s mother, said on behalf of all the victims’ families: “The scale of failures that we have already endured at the hands of the institutions and organisations that contributed to the entirely preventable deaths of Grace, Barney and Ian are shameful.
“The statutory public inquiry will begin in February and already the sheer scale of what lies ahead in the detail of these is alarming.
“To now be made aware that the IOPC, the very body that alleges to independently hold our police force to account, may itself be complicit in such gross misconduct is terrifying.
“This development not only puts into question to legitimacy, honesty and integrity of our own investigations, but also to those taking place (and already taken place) on a national level.
“If we cannot trust them to hold the police force to account, then who can we trust. This is a matter of public safety and must be addressed.
“We have written twice to the Home Secretary to request an urgent meeting. Despite acknowledging receipt of our first letter, disappointingly no offer of a meeting or further action has been forthcoming. We now call upon the Secretary of State, Shabana Mahmood, to take urgent action.”
Ms O’Malley-Kumar’s father Dr Sanjoy Kumar added: “If the public cannot have faith in national organisations like the IOPC then the organisation must be razed to the ground and we must start again with an organisation that has 100% public confidence.”
