Interview with Barnaby Webber's mum about the Nottingham murders

[MyKindHiker]

I listened to the interview with Barnaby Webber’s mother today on the Crime Agents podcast. She was very poised and persuasive. It’s absolutely disgraceful the systemic failures which led to the public not being protected from Valdo Calocane despite multiple red flags which would have been raised if the mental health authorities and police had been working properly together.

One thing however which I found was a bit unchallenged in the podcast (and has also not been challenged by the media generally) is the repeated statement by the victims’ families that there was some kind of stitch-up by the CPS in not pressing murder charges and instead allowing indefinite detention under the mental health act. Mrs Webber’s perspective, which I have heard from other victims’ families is that the fact that Calocane planned the attacks indicated he was enough in control of his actions that he should face criminal charges.

My concern with this idea going unchallenged is that it seems to misunderstand mental illness. It ignores that people in the grips of delusion can ‘seem’ very rational. And indeed if you are in a delusion where you are fighting demons, or are an army officer in a combat scenario, you might plan and do terrible things but in a framework that to you at the time seems completely logical, legal and even moral. I gather there were 5 different psychiatrists’ reports all of which indicated that this was the case with Calocane and the CPS concluded there was just no possibility of a conviction.

I am not defending Calocane. But I do think we should make space for some discussion around mental health and why it is we decided not to put people in jail who are mentally ill. Also I do wonder if we should have more appropriate sanctions if a person has been mentally ill, been violent, been sectioned and then absconded whether there could be recall powers or flags put out to effectively force them to engage in treatment.

I'd be interested in others' thoughts. And whether I'm also misunderstanding mental illness and / or the nature of the law.

You are correct but I feel bad saying that because obviously I have so much sympathy for the families. My Mum had schizophrenia and it is very misunderstood. (My Mum was violent and tried to stab my Dad to death with a fork in front of me, I was put in foster care as a child until she became more stable with medication). I remember one story she told me about someone in hospital with her who managed to put her house up for sale and even rented moving vehicles etc (ie a great deal of planning) to move in with a man who she had never actually talked to in real life but in her head had convinced herself that they were in love and were going to move in together. She was sectioned when she realised it was a fantasy and she had actually made herself homeless.

Yes I have people close to me who have been sectioned before, and in the hospitals there is often a full spectrum of people from those who are ranting and incoherent through to others who seem perfectly reasonable and will sit down and tell you they are actually in hiding from the mafia, or are the princess Anastasia etc etc.

Their issue is that if he is deemed fit he could be released at any time, but if he had a set sentence that wouldn’t be the case.
Imagine your child being killed by a monster and thinking that society doesn’t deem your child’s life is worth a murder sentence.

This isn't a legal thing, but I have less sympathy with people who did terrible things for terrible reasons even if they were in the grip of a delusion

E.g. there was a case of someone who hallucinated (as the result of drugs) that his neighbours house was on fire so he broke in and "saved" the pets. In reality he'd stolen some animals and caused damage and fear.but he wasn't acting from malevolence.
But then you have the man who murdered the 2 sisters over lockdown because, in his delusion, he thought he had been promised that murdering innocent victims would enable him to win the lottery. He was hallucinating. But if.someone who existed in real life offered you money to commit murder you would still be responsible for the murder. I don't think the fact that the person offering the money wasn't real makes it any better...

Of course also, the killer in this case is a danger to the public and should be locked up to keep themselves and other people safe regardless.

But that doesn't address any of the points?

I think if I knew that someone was in the throes of delusion and thought my child was (for example) a demon and they had to kill them, I'd hate that person, I'd want them dead. But I think I'd understand that the law would say that if they didn't hunderstand their actions a murder charge would not apply?

My understanding is that there are a lot of people in permanent detention under the mental health act as they are dangerous and never face charges for the crimes they have committed.

Agree he should be locked up, but he's indefinitely detained under the mental health act.

The lockdown guy I think was different as he knew what he was doing was wrong, tried to cover his tracks etc.

I have read your posts over and over and I cannot for the life of me work out what you're driving at. But I think you need to be aware that when you (from your privileged position of not having your wonderful young son murdered) say:

I think if I knew that someone was in the throes of delusion and thought my child was (for example) a demon and they had to kill them, I'd hate that person, I'd want them dead. But I think I'd understand that the law would say that if they didn't hunderstand their actions a murder charge would not apply?

you aren't coming across well. At all.

Unless you’ve had the terrible experience of having someone close to you murdered, you’ll never understand the emotions involved. Don’t judge those people whose shoes you’d never wish to walk in.

My question isn’t about how awful it feels to have someone murdered. It’s about the lack of understanding of mental health and the law and how that’s been quite unchallenged by the media?

He should a million percent have been stopped. But I do have to agree with the CPS that there was no possibility of a conviction with a row of psychiatrists saying the guy didn’t know what planet he was on

But the point is victims’ families don’t make the law. They are campaigning on two fronts: the first is to get the authorities to better co-operate to prevent things like this happening. Couldn’t agree more. The second is they want the guy to stand trial for murder. And that i can’t get my head around because there are a load of psychiatrists all in agreement the guy was too insane to stand trial.

My points were 1) why this isn’t discussed in the media and 2) if i was missing something.

If the only thing i’m missing is they are really upset, I didn’t miss that. But that’s not how the law works.

Unless your point more broadly is if someone kills someone they should stand trial no matter how mentally ill they are and we don’t have ‘not guilty by reason of insanity’ as a category at all? Because if that’s the case we’ll agree to disagree on that one.

You put so well exactly what I was thinking.

You are correct. It is incoherent to say that psychiatric services failed him and the public so badly through their negligence he shouldn't have even been in the community without psychiatric care (he had been discharged to the GP!) given he was so unwell, whilst having sound enough mind to plan and execute murders. The reason the killings happened was due to poor psychiatric care, including widespread underfunding of services and a move from inpatient and residential settings for people with mental illness, to 'care in the community' with an associated higher risk to the public. I dont think Mrs Webber will succeed in changing the charge.

In this case I felt really sorry for Ian Coates’ family who were largely sidelined because he was older and WC. Even the student’s families never seemed to mention him, only each other. Just saying.

Don’t you understand that it’s their emotion that is blinding them to logical reasoning?

I think there is a fundamental unfairness with insanity pleas that women who have killed their babies in the grip of PPP have been tried and imprisoned for murder while men who commit murder by way of insanity get sectioned for a Rather Long Time. I would like the law to be clearer on this and more fairly applied because it currently seems to work in favour of men. It shouldn’t be whether they are currently fit to stand trial it should be were they in sound mind when they committed the crime. I think MH trusts should also be held responsible (maybe under the HSE) if they choose to leave known risks in public with little support. Because they choose to do this a lot. Maybe if they felt some consequences then instead of saying “lessons were learned” with an insincere head tilt they would actually provide more inpatient beds and staff which is what we desperately need.

I think it’s not fair to expect victims families to be rational about these things but then equally if they are campaigning on an issue like this, we need to be able to discuss and refute what is said and what is being proposed rather than it being shut down by people saying “you don’t know what it’s like” (people who likely also don’t know what it’s like). I have been there. I do know what it’s like. And the perpetrator got a suspended sentence in our case. Which felt like she got to walk away. But I don’t think going around campaigning for law changes would help. The law was correctly applied and we just had to learn to accept the outcome.

People feel the strong urge to do something after a murder or preventable death. It’s a coping mechanism. A lot of bereaved people seem to start campaigns these days. But it doesn’t necessarily mean their campaign is correct or sensible or that they have fixated on the right issue. Refuting that isn’t cruel and shouldn’t be taboo.