Court of Appeal refuses to change sentence of Nottingham triple killer Valdo Calocane
The Court of Appeal has refused to change the sentence of Valdo Calocane, who killed three people in Nottingham last summer.
The 32-year-old was given an indefinite hospital order after admitting the manslaughter of Barnaby Webber, Grace O’Malley-Kumar and Ian Coates by reason of diminished responsibility, and the attempted murder of three others last June.
The Attorney General referred the sentence to the Court of Appeal in February, with lawyers arguing last week that Calocane — who suffers from paranoid schizophrenia — should be given a “hybrid” order where he would be treated before serving the remainder of the sentence in custody.
But three senior judges dismissed the bid on Tuesday, stating that while Calocane’s offences caused “unimaginable grief”, his sentence was not unduly lenient as his paranoid schizophrenia was “the sole identified cause of these crimes”.
Giving their judgment, the Lady Chief Justice Baroness Carr said: “There was no error in the approach adopted by the judge.
“The sentences imposed were not arguably unduly lenient.”