KILLER’S GOT IT CUSHY Triple killer Valdo Calocane can build Lego, play guitar, paint & have personal shower at psychiatric hospital
TRIPLE killer Valdo Calocane will have the chance to build Lego sets, play the guitar and paint while he is held in a high-security psychiatric hospital.
The 32-year-old could also pass the time decorating his room with plants and rugs, details from Ashworth Hospital’s possessions catalogue show.
The killer dodged being sent to a Category A jail after the prosecution dropped murder charges and let him plead guilty to manslaughter with diminished responsibility.
It comes as Nazir Afzal, former Chief Prosecutor for the North West, told The Sun on Sunday that the CPS failed to explain properly to the public why he was not put on trial.
Prosecutors said Calocane’s history of paranoid schizophrenia meant he did not have the intent to murder, a claim rejected by the families of victims Ian Coates, 65, Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar, both 19.
The NHS centre in Maghull, near Liverpool, has a softer regime than high-security prisons — where he would have served his sentence had he been convicted of murder.
At Ashworth, patients are permitted to hug visiting relatives.
They can cheer up their rooms — equipped with a personal shower — with plants and picture frames.
Net curtains, flags and rugs are also permitted.
Ashworth’s possessions catalogue reveals patients are allowed tech and electronics — including TVs and DVD players — worth up to £300.
But if Calocane had been convicted on the murder charges he would be in a Category A prison, where prisoners are only allowed an alarm clock, a radio, books and photos of loved ones.
While held at Ashworth, he will see visitors only through glass as he is a risk to others.
But a former Ashworth worker told the Sun on Sunday that if he responded to treatment and became stable, Calocane would be able to access the courses and classes.
He said: “He’ll have the freedom to walk around, 24 hours a day.
“If Calocane’s stable enough and they get his medication right, he can go to social events where they’ll have a film or a show on.
“He can go and do education, he can go to the gym, arts and crafts. There’s a metal workshop, cookery classes, even a swimming pool.
“What I found when I was there is that it’s seen as a holiday camp.
“Prisoners wanted to play the mental health card so they could get moved from jail.”
Calocane hid in an alley before stabbing students Barnaby and Grace to death near their university halls in Nottingham on June 13.
He first attacked Barnaby before Grace tried to fight Calocane for more than 30 seconds in a heroic effort to save her friend.
Afterwards, he walked across the city to ambush and stab to death school caretaker Ian Coates in his van before using the vehicle to mow down three pedestrians.
Cop-killer Dale Cregan, 40, wrote to pals in 2016 after securing a move from Strangeways prison in Manchester to Ashworth: “I’m good bro just smashing the gym and playing snooker you know how it goes.
“Been doin’ pure circuits on the ward. You know you got your a**e kicked at snooker and tennis you had me at the kayaking tho bro.”
At Calocane’s sentencing this week, Mr Justice Turner said he was “entirely satisfied” that the killer’s mental condition fulfilled the requirements of the diminished responsibility partial defence.
And the killer could be eligible for release in just three years according to the terms of his hospital order.
Former chief prosecutor Mr Afzal told The Sun on Sunday that he would welcome a “greater explanation” from the CPS for the public into the change in charges.
He said: “A lot of people who commit these crimes are mentally ill and that’s why we have a defence of diminished responsibility.
“I wish the CPS would explain it. I left seven or eight years ago and we were really keen to share as much information with the public as possible so that they would understand those decisions.
“It appears not to be the way they do things these days.
“It seems a bit contradictory to accept an intent to kill for attempted murder but to say he has diminished responsibility when it comes to murder. I would welcome a greater explanation.”
The victims’ families have said they felt “railroaded” by the CPS into accepting the manslaughter plea.
Barnaby’s mum, Emma, said she had a six-hour meeting with the police and the CPS to see if Calocane was “out of his mind”.
Instead, she said she saw “someone who planned his route before attacking my precious son”.
Outside court, Ian’s son, James, said: “The letter of the law was once considered the most important rule to live and abide by.
"Now they’re just a cautionary tale where the calculated, cold brutal killing spree can be reduced down to something that falls within the same sentence as that of death by dangerous driving.
“The failures from the police, the CPS, the health service have resulted in the murder of my father and two innocent students.
“All we can do is hope that some sort of justice will be served. This man has made a mockery of the system and got away with murder.”
What the patients can get
- Batteries
- Calculator
- ClockRadio
- TV and set top box
- Digital Radio
- DVD player
- Music Centre & Hi-Fi
- Turntable
- Curtains,Duvet Coversand Bedding
- Net Curtains
- Ornaments
- Pictures framesand posters
- Rugs/similar softfloor coverings
- Beard oil
- Body exfoliator mitt
- Dead Sea salts
- Acoustic Guitar
- Korg Synthesiser
- Harmonica/Mouth Organ
- Keyboard
- Saxophone
- Art equipment
- Coin collection
- Exercise mats
- Flags
- The Football Pools
- Plants
- Snooker Cue
- Toys
- Lego
My phone agony
BARNABY Webber’s mum found out he had died after tracing his phone to the street of the attacks.
Emma and David Webber were at home in Somerset when the news said a man and woman had been killed in Nottingham.
Emma said: “I didn’t think of my son as a man. He’s 19. He’s my boy. I said to work colleagues, ‘Sorry, I’m distracted. I want to make sure Barney is OK.’
“We tried ringing then Dave said, ‘Let’s have a look on the Find My Phone app’.
“The phone was on a road we’d never heard of. That’s when I began to worry. At that moment the news said the incident was in Ilkeston Road. Dave said, ‘Barney’s phone is there.’ My body just went cold.”
The couple heard of Barnaby’s death as they drove to Nottingham.
Emma said she got out of the car, fell to her knees and screamed.
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