A young man whose best friend was killed by a paranoid schizophrenic has spoken of his anger that lessons were not learned ahead of the Nottingham attack that left three people dead.
Michael Callaghan, 27, was left permanently disabled and his friend Jacob Billington died when they were both stabbed on a night out in Birmingham in 2020.
In both cases the attackers were known by professionals to be dangerous and despite having serious paranoid schizophrenia, they were not engaging with health services and refusing to take medication. Yet both killers were free to roam the streets armed with knives attacking victims at random.
Four years on from his attack, Mr Callaghan says he is still “learning to deal with living with one paralysed arm and identifying as a disabled person”.
He was stabbed in the neck, causing a stroke that has affected his sight and left arm and leg. A scar on his head reveals where surgeons had to remove part of his skull to relieve pressure on his brain.
Image: Michael Callaghan has been left permanently disabled
Image: Mr Callaghan has been left with a scar on his head
“It’s changed literally every single aspect of my life. Everything takes me longer now. I’ve got to plan ahead. I can’t work,” he told Sky News.
“All that being said, Jacob not being in my life any more has affected my life much more severely and obviously than any of the disabilities.”
Reacting to a damning report into failings in the management of Nottingham attacker Valdo Calocane, Mr Callaghan says lessons weren’t learned after a similar report into the care of Zephaniah McLeod, the man who attacked him.
“What on earth is going on for such obvious, avoidable things to just happen like that? He was a known dangerous person and let out with no supervision whatsoever, no medication taken. I don’t know. How on earth can that be allowed to happen?” he said.
“It’s unbelievable that no one responsible for it, no one in any position of authority has ever been named or had to justify those decisions.
“It’s all been treated as though it’s just an unfortunate accident. They can’t all be unfortunate along the way.”
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On average, over 100 people a year are killed by someone with mental illness in the UK.
Jacob Billington’s mother, who has campaigned since her son’s death for systemic failings to be highlighted, fears further deaths are inevitable.
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Jacob’s mother says lessons ‘haven’t been learned’ from her son’s death
She now believes a full public inquiry is needed to examine why the system allows so many dangerous people to slip through the net.
“It absolutely makes it worse in that you feel that not only have you lost your son in the most horrific of circumstances, but the lessons that were supposedly learned from his death haven’t been,” she told Sky News.
“I think sometimes the way these services are funded, it’s almost like these deaths are collateral damage to a poorly run and poorly funded system.”
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