The mother of one of the Nottingham Knife Attack victims has hit out at the BBC after learning it will broadcast interviews with the family of her son’s killer on TV.
Emma Webber’s son Barnaby, alongside his friend Grace O’Malley-Kumar and school caretaker Ian Coates were all stabbed to death by Valdo Calocane in the city centre last June.
Calocane had killed 19-year-olds Webber and O’Malley-Kumar as the pair were walking home from night out, before killing Coates, 65, and stealing his van.
He then used the vehicle to knock down three pedestrians in Nottingham before he was finally arrested, and was eventually sentenced to an indefinite hospital order for his crimes.
Ian Coates, Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar were fatally stabbed by Valdo CalocanePAOn Monday, the BBC will be airing a Panorama documentary entitled The Nottingham Attacks: A Search for Answers – in which “members of the Calocane family help to shed light on the missed opportunities in his care”.
Calocane was ruled to have committed manslaughter by diminished responsibility after medical experts concluded he suffered from paranoid schizophrenia.
But the documentary, understood to centre on his mental health and NHS treatment before the attack, has sparked fury from Emma Webber – not least because the BBC didn’t consult his victims’ families before airing the programme, which even prompted Health Secretary Wes Streeting to raise concerns with the broadcaster.
She told The Sun that all three families involved have been left feeling “very disappointed and alarmed” by the lack of consultation, and added that the thought of seeing Calocane’s family on her TV screen brought her “unimaginable horror”.
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All three of the victims’ families, pictured outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, have been left “very disappointed and alarmed”
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After hearing about the “almost cruel” Panorama documentary, Webber complained to the BBC, but was rebuffed by bosses at the broadcaster who told her releasing the interviews was in the public interest.
She said: “This is my son that we’re talking about. This is a story on this monster that brutally and ferociously attacked and killed him.
“It’s absolute horror… Every waking moment, my thoughts are haunted by what that individual did to my son.
“Any investigative journalism that helps to uncover all of the failings of this horror is welcomed… But the way this has been carried out by the BBC concerns me, because I can’t see how it’s balanced without us being involved or having prior knowledge of the contents.”
Emma Webber labelled Valdo Calocane a “monster”
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The BBC insists the documentary falls within the public interest
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In response, the BBC said: “We have the deepest sympathy for the families, and the Panorama team has been extremely mindful of the sensitivities in handling this programme.
“They have been in contact with the bereaved families to tell them about the programme and to provide an outline of its editorial focus.
“This investigation, which is very much in the public interest, examines the decline in the mental health of Valdo Calocane and asks whether there were systemic failings and missed opportunities in his interactions with mental health services in in the three years leading up to the terrible events in Nottingham last year.
“The documentary has been produced in accordance with the BBC’s editorial guidelines.”
Ian Coates, Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar were fatally stabbed by Valdo CalocanePA
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