When Woke Ideas Kill

On 13 June 2023 Valdo Calocane killed three people and seriously injured three others in Nottingham city centre. Many details of this incident have emerged in the ongoing “Nottingham Inquiry” which seeks to identify any institutional wrongdoing in the handling of Calocane’s case.

The story of his interactions with authorities is one of the most damning indictments of Britain’s institutions one could come across. Even without the benefit of hindsight, were common sense to prevail, there were innumerable opportunities to prevent such a deadly attack from occurring. He would be sectioned, under the Mental Health Act, four times before committing his deadly spree.

One of the most troubling revelations is that after his very first incident he was released back into public life because healthcare professionals feared it might be racist to detain a young black man, given the documented overrepresentation of black men in psychiatric detention. Had normal practices been followed, he would have been detained and undoubtedly the series of events that followed would never have happened.

Here is the story leading up to that fateful day.

Calocane’s first notable contact with authorities came in May 2020. He attended A&E believing he was having a heart attack. After returning home from hospital, he kicked down the door of a neighbour’s flat, resulting in police arresting him for criminal damage.

A mental health assessment concluded that he was experiencing psychosis, and he was released for community monitoring. Mental health professionals were inclined to section him because of the nature of the incident but ultimately decided against it when they considered the “research that shows over-representation of young black males in detention”.

Within 40 minutes of being released, he forced entry into another neighbour’s flat. The resident was so frightened she jumped from a first-floor window, suffering severe spinal injuries that required surgery. The woman insisted that had she not done so he “could have killed” her.

He was then detained under the Mental Health Act for the first time and hospitalised for around a month. It was documented that Calocane’s behaviour had been an episode of psychosis brought on by the stress of coursework and an upcoming exam, coupled with a lack of sleep during the previous week. However, he would later be diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic.

In July 2020, Calocane was admitted to hospital after forcibly entering another neighbour’s flat, but was released after two weeks. Following his discharge, he received regular visits to monitor his condition.

In May 2021 Calocane turned up outside MI5 headquarters dressed all in black and insisted over the intercom that he be arrested. When police arrived, he was “coherent” and “compliant” and was already in the process of leaving willingly. The police officer he had interacted with saw nothing unusual and described it as a “routine stop”.

By August 2021 it was established that he had stopped taking his medication and was refusing treatment, claiming the medication could “slow the mind”. As a result, he was placed on a waiting list for in-patient care.

By September 2021, after refusing medication and resisting detention during a mental health assessment, police were called. When officers arrived, Calocane was reported to be calm. However, when they entered his room he suddenly attacked one officer, punching and headbutting him and using handcuffs as a weapon. Police had to use a Taser and pepper spray before they were able to detain him.

Due to a shortage of psychiatric intensive care beds, he was transferred between several private hospitals before being discharged after a month. Medics later stated that they believed “there were no risks to himself or others at that time”.

By January 2022, police were called again after Calocane trapped two flatmates inside their flat. He was assessed under the Mental Health Act but was not detained. Instead, it was agreed that he would receive daily visits from mental health services. Nevertheless, he ended up spending another month in hospital care before being released once more.

By this point, his care providers had been instructed never to visit his property alone due to his history of violence. However, he began failing to attend appointments to collect his medication, and his most recent address appeared to be incorrect, meaning mental health services were unable to account for his whereabouts.

Then, on 13 June 2023, he carried out a combined knife and vehicle attack in Nottingham that left Barnaby Webber, Grace O’Malley-Kumar, both 19, and Ian Coates, 65, dead, while also attempting to kill three other people.

He was sentenced to an indefinite hospital order in January 2024 after admitting manslaughter by diminished responsibility and attempted murder: a sentence that received significant pushback from the victims’ families.

Thus, it is clear that there were innumerable instances where such a tragedy could have been avoided. Repeatedly breaking into neighbours’ properties should have been a major red flag as to his ability to live safely within wider society. It speaks of profound institutional failure that such a person was repeatedly released into the population. Those with severe mental health conditions such as Calocane are unlikely to lead stable independent lives without continuous treatment and supervision, and releasing them into the world often presents hurdles that they cannot overcome. This is exactly what we saw in this case, whereby his condition deteriorated away from the supervision of healthcare professionals.

There currently exists a convenient marriage of perspectives within Britain’s institutions that results in dangerous people being allowed on the streets. The first of which is the belief that being in the community helps those with mental health conditions. This may be true if you have family living with you and caring for you, but when living alone with neighbours who are rightfully terrified of you it is doubtful that Calocane received any support at all.

Similarly, detaining and treating someone with mental health issues is rather expensive and so efforts have been made in Britain to reduce the number of those detained in mental health facilities. The consequence of this partnership of perspectives is that severely mentally ill people are mixed into the population without sufficient support. They can be a danger to those around them and often to themselves.

In this instance, had mental health professionals not released Calocane over concerns about whether it would be racist to detain him, things would undoubtedly have gone differently. It was only the acceptance of the idea that black people are disproportionately detained due to racism that allowed him to be free to commit further offences. To understand just how negligent such a perspective is, one must have some understanding of schizophrenia.

The reality is that rates of psychosis and schizophrenia are much higher for black individuals, leading to more interactions with mental health services. Afro-Caribbeans are nine times more likely to be diagnosed with schizophrenia than White British people. Black Africans are six times more likely. Even in the United States, black Americans are three to four times more likely to be diagnosed with schizophrenia than whites.

This disparity in psychosis and schizophrenia diagnoses is well known and widely circulated amongst clinicians. Large-scale studies have established that the disorder is highly heritable, with some research suggesting heritability of around 79%. If taken to be accurate, this would mean that schizophrenia is predominantly genetic, with environmental influences playing a smaller role.

Living in urban areas, cannabis use, and parental separation are all established environmental contributing factors. The contemporary understanding of the disorder is that these environmental factors may contribute to the manifestation of schizophrenic symptoms in those who were already genetically predisposed. Whether an individual would inevitably develop the disorder over time remains unclear with current scientific understanding.

Today, the genetic basis of schizophrenia is well established within clinical psychology and psychiatry. Differences between a schizophrenic brain and a normally functioning one can even be observed using neuroimaging. A schizophrenic brain will often show elevated activity in multiple regions. Increased activity in the striatum is associated with hallucinations, in the hippocampus with memory deficits, and in the medial frontal and parietal areas with an impaired ability to distinguish between thoughts and external reality.

All of this is to say that the condition has deeply rooted biological causes that are largely genetic, which is why schizophrenia typically requires lifelong management. Untreated psychosis can present serious risks both for the patient and for those around them. There is little room for “racism” to be a causal factor in the disorder itself, unless racism somehow determines which genes are expressed in a person’s DNA. Anyone working in the field of mental health should understand this very clearly.

It was only through placing ideology above evidence that Calocane was allowed to go on his lethal spree. Had evidence-based clinical psychology prevailed, he likely would not have been released at all. Putting ideological concerns first had catastrophic consequences that could have clearly been avoided. This case should provide a cautionary tale that woke ideas can indeed kill.