'The message is as barbaric as the crime for me.'
The mum of a student who was stabbed to death in Nottingham has criticised the ‘barbaric’ WhatsApp messages about the attack sent by police officers.
Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar, both 19, were killed as they walked home from a night out by 32-year-old paranoid schizophrenic Valdo Calocane last June.
Calocane then went on to flag down and kill caretaker Ian Coates, 65.
Barnaby and Grace’s parents have reacted with ‘disgust’ after Sky News revealed ‘disgusting’ WhatsApp messages sent by police officers in the aftermath of the stabbings.
One officer messaged colleagues on a WhatsApp group, saying: ‘So 2 students on Ilkeston road have been proper butchered, 4 section [officers] turned up and tried to hold their inners in.
‘Suspects then made off and attacked a man in a car on magdala [road] and stabbed him to death.’
Another officer, PC Matt Gell, then shared the message outside of the police WhatsApp group with his wife and two friends.
Barnaby and Grace’s family only feel comfortable sharing the contents of the message now, two months after learning of it in February, because they were so disturbed by its contents.
Grace’s father, Dr Sanjoy Kumar, said the message is ‘so disgusting’, adding: ‘Would anyone with a child, a mother, a relative use words like that?
‘Why have police in Nottinghamshire forgotten that these are our dear and beloved children they are referring to? I have tears in my eyes every time the message echoes in my head.
‘The message is as barbaric as the crime for me.’
Emma Webber, Barnaby’s mum, has written an open letter to the police officers in the WhatsApp group, after requests to meet them in person were denied by the force.
The letter read: ‘The callous, degrading and desensitised manner of your comments have caused more trauma than you can imagine.
‘When you say “a couple of students have been properly butchered” did you stop to think about the absolute terror that they felt in the moment when they were ambushed and repeatedly stabbed by a man who had planned his attack and lay waiting in the shadows for them?
‘When you say “innards out and everything” did you think about the agony they felt and the final thoughts that went through their minds as this vicious individual inflicted wounds so serious that they had no chance of surviving?’
The officer who wrote the message did not face a misconduct hearing but received ‘management intervention’.
In January, PC Gell, who forwarded the message to people outside the force, was found guilty of gross misconduct and given a final written warning after he looked up records relating to Calocane when he had no part in the investigation.
The panel at the hearing agreed with his acknowledgement that he had ‘a lapse of judgement’.
A special constable was also sacked for viewing body-worn footage of the two students in their final moments.
Almost 180 police staff were found to have viewed material relating to the case, with 11 of them having no “legitimate reason” to do so.
Nottinghamshire Police referred itself to the Independent Office for Police Conduct after the families raised a number of concerns over the investigation and police conduct, including the force’s failure to inform relatives their Professional Standards Directorate was investigating officers.
The College of Policing is also conducting a review of how the force handled the case.
Deputy Chief Constable Steve Cooper said action over the WhatsApp message was taken ‘immediately’.
‘Some of the words were crude and distasteful. It was a single message and no images were taken or shared,’ he said.
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