Nottingham victim’s mother ‘won’t forgive’ officer who viewed bodycam footage

The mother of Nottingham attack victim Barnaby Webber has said she will “never forgive” the police officer who viewed bodycam footage of her son being tended to by medics in the street as he died.

Barnaby, his friend Grace O’Malley-Kumar, and school caretaker Ian Coates were stabbed to death by Valdo Calocane in Nottingham on June 13 2023.

Emma Webber told LBC on Wednesday: “The police have finally given us details yesterday, because we asked the chief constable and we got a letter last night containing details because we’ve heard lots of varying versions of it.

“We’ve had an apology for us not being informed in advance, and then we had the detail of how seriously they take this, and officers are specially trained, lessons will be learnt.

“But that doesn’t really help with the pain of knowing that people were viewing the bodycam footage of my son in the street and I will never forgive them for that.”

Nottinghamshire Police said a special constable was sacked in December for viewing footage of the incident in Ilkeston Road where Barnaby was attacked.

A letter from the force to Mrs Webber said: “The investigation established that he had viewed the BWV footage on August 31 2024 using his police laptop and viewed footage relating to officers and paramedics providing medical assistance to Barnaby and Grace at the scene, and after they had passed away.”

“We are horrified and sickened to know that police personnel would think it’s appropriate to do anything like that,” Mrs Webber said.

“I think the words that we’ve used are ‘abhorrent voyeurism’ and I would ask the people who did look at that and share that to have a look at themselves and their own families.”

As well the sacking of the special, police constable Matthew Gell was given a final written warning after a misconduct hearing in January heard he shared information about the case in a text message and had breached confidentiality standards.

Mrs Webber said the victim’s families were not told about the messages by Nottinghamshire Police: “We were not told, they did not formally advise the families of these breaches of data, and/or of the upcoming misconduct hearings.

“We found out about it through the media, and that in itself is very wrong.”

On Tuesday, Attorney General Victoria Prentis confirmed she will refer Calocane’s sentence to the Court of Appeal for reconsideration after concluding it was “unduly lenient”.

Calocane was sentenced to an indefinite hospital order last month. He admitted manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility after Nottingham Crown Court heard he had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.

Relatives of Calocane’s victims reacted angrily to the sentencing after prosecutors decided not to pursue murder charges.

Addressing the Attorney General’s decision to refer the sentence to the Court of Appeal, Mrs Webber said: “We don’t dispute that he was mentally unwell, but we do dispute that he was in psychosis and diminished to the point of no culpability and we are relieved to hear the news from yesterday.

“His sustained actions, the aggravated manner of his premeditation and lots of other reasons that we are aware of make us firmly believe that he knew what he was doing.

“Obviously he knew it was wrong, he knew what he was doing, and he did it anyway. He’s a murderer and we felt that – at the sentencing – he had gotten away with murder.”

In a statement, Deputy Chief Constable Steve Cooper said: “Nottinghamshire Police has carried out a thorough and extensive investigation into those who viewed material related to the Nottingham attacks which had no policing purpose to do so.

“Two officers have faced misconduct hearings as a result.

“A special constable was sacked for viewing body cam footage of the incident in Ilkeston Road. He was immediately removed from the organisation by the Chief Constable following a misconduct hearing in December.

“None of this footage has ever been shared.

“A police officer was also given a final written warning by an independent legally qualified chair for viewing information about Valdo Calocane and sharing a single Whatsapp message.

“This misconduct hearing was held in January.

“None of the message contained any video or images.

“For clarity, the investigation has found that no one has ever shared any images or video in relation to these horrific attacks.”