Officer missed arrest warrant in killer's police log

A police officer took no action after viewing a log that showed an outstanding arrest warrant for Valdo Calocane, weeks before he carried out deadly attacks in Nottingham, a public inquiry has heard.

Calocane stabbed to death Barnaby Webber, Grace O'Malley-Kumar, both 19, and 65-year-old Ian Coates, and tried to kill three others on 13 June 2023.

Less than two months earlier, Leicestershire Police was called when he violently assaulted a couple at a warehouse in Kegworth, where he was working.

On Wednesday, PC Libbie-Mae Taylor, who was dealing with the incident at the warehouse, apologised and told the inquiry she "didn't see" the warrant - despite evidence that she viewed the log.

The Nottingham Inquiry, led by retired judge Deborah Taylor, is examining the events that led up to the attacks.

More than 100 witnesses, including those from Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire Police, and the NHS, are giving evidence to the inquiry, which is running for a total in nine weeks in London.

The inquiry heard how on 5 May 2023, Calocane punched another worker at the warehouse - run by logistics firm Arvato - in Kegworth, Leicestershire, knocking him to the ground, before kicking and pushing the man's wife.

Leicestershire Police was called and attended, but Calocane had been escorted off the site before Taylor and her supervisor PC Connor Amos-Perkins had arrived.

Taylor, who was the officer in charge of the investigation, told the inquiry how she took brief notes while speaking to staff members and the victims, and had recorded the conversations on her bodyworn camera.

However, the footage was not saved after being taken back to the station.

"I think at the time I think I was too literal in it's not evidential because it didn't show anything. I didn't need to save it," Taylor said.

She said she put that decision down to her "inexperience" and was not aware that the footage would delete automatically after 31 days, and "unfortunately that's what happened".

The inquiry heard Taylor also failed to save CCTV footage from the warehouse because she did not believe it would be useful, saying it was "really far away and blurry".

She added: "Because I was inexperienced I shouldn't have made that decision, I should have spoken to my tutor or my sergeant and said 'what can we do?'"

Taylor was a probationary PC at the time and was on her 12th operational shift on 5 May.

The inquiry heard Calocane had been recruited through an agency called Sky Recruitment, and started working at the site on 1 May.

He was known to Arvato as Val Mendez, and police were directed to the agency to get his full name and information.

A police log shown to the inquiry recorded Taylor had received Calocane's full name and other details, including his address, on 24 May.

She then searched his name on a database, called Niche, which showed Calocane's history of dealings with the police.

The first entry on that log would have shown an outstanding arrest warrant.

That warrant was issued when Calocane failed to appear at Nottingham Crown Court in September 2022, for assaulting a police officer a year earlier.

An audit of the police database showed Taylor had clicked on to the log twice, once for about half a minute, and on a second occasion for 42 seconds, the inquiry heard.

However, she said she made her own entry in relation to the assault at the warehouse, but did not look at the rest of the log.

"If I did click on it and that's what the Niche audit says, all I can say is I've not absorbed that information, because if I had seen that I would have said something to [my supervisor] and I didn't, and therefore, I didn't see it," she said.

The log would have also included numerous previous incidents Calocane was involved in from 2020, including assaulting flatmates, breaking into a neighbour's flat and trying to break into others' homes.

However, in a statement to the police watchdog, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) - which is carrying out a separate investigation into the force's involvement with Calocane before the attacks - Taylor said she believed she had looked at previous investigations.

When asked about the looking at the log, she said: "I don't recall looking at the list, I don't recall. I've never seen the warrant."

She added if she had seen the warrant, she would have spoken to her supervisor, PC Connor Amos-Perkins, who she claimed was with her at the time.

Taylor said: "I think that in this incident, I made mistakes, I think that when we've all admitted, you know, accepted that we've made these mistakes and unfortunately, it's really difficult.

"And I only apologise for making those mistakes and the role that I played in it."

Amos-Perkins, in his evidence, said he too could not recall "checking over" entries on Calocane's history on the police database.

He said: "I didn't know anything about this warrant at the time of the investigation."

Angela Patrick KC, representing the bereaved families, asked Amos-Perkins: "If you'd been sat next to PC Taylor and she'd asked you for help, you'd have seen the screen wouldn't you?"

Amos-Perkins said he would "not naturally" have seen the screen and could not remember exactly where he was positioned in the office at the time.

Patrick asked: "Did you really not just lean over and take a quick look?"

"No I didn't, and I should have," the officer replied.

Amos-Perkins said he should have helped Taylor use the Niche database "step by step".

"I think maybe I was a bit overconfident in PC Taylor's abilities and thought that she'd be able to operate the system but that was obviously an oversight on my behalf.

"I should have been sat there," he said.

He also told the inquiry as the "most experienced" officer at the scene on 5 May, he should have co-ordinated how the incident was dealt with.

Amos-Perkins added "looking back and reflecting", checks should have been done to ensure the investigation was conducted properly.

Later on Wednesday, the inquiry heard Sgt Mark Read was supposed to have carried out a mandatory 28-day review of Taylor's and Amos-Perkins's investigation.

However, he told the inquiry had a high workload at the time.

In a witness statement read out to the inquiry, Read said: "Looking back I believe that it was as a result of the reality of my workload that I failed to conduct a 28-day written review of the assault allegation in Kegworth."

If he had carried out the review, Read said he would have looked at the Niche system.

"If I'd conducted a review and seen the person had been added, I'd have seen the significance of that warrant," he said.

Asked by counsel to the inquiry, Rachel Langdale KC, what he would have done if he had seen the warrant, Read said he would have notified Nottinghamshire Police, or told Taylor to notify the force.

Langdale said: "So it's a real opportunity missed in chronology isn't it?"

"It is, yes," Read replied.

If the warrant had been carried out, Calocane would have been taken to custody and put in front of a court at the earliest possible opportunity, the inquiry heard.

At the time, Read was a temporary sergeant and had been in the role for less than 12 months.

He said he now used a reminder system "religiously", to ensure he carried out 28-day reviews.

Giving evidence to the inquiry, Leicestershire Police's Temporary Chief Constable David Sandall said: "We've acknowledged that the officers hadn't met the standard of investigation that we would want.

"We acknowledge that as an organisation and I apologise for that."

The inquiry heard it was agreed Sandall would not be questioned on the conduct of officers who dealt with Calocane due to an ongoing, separate investigation by the IOPC.

When asked about the bodyworn footage, he told the inquiry that despite the 31-day retention, it would have been possible to retrieve the footage from the system after three months.

However, he said the request for the footage from Nottinghamshire Police, following the attacks, was not sent to the Leicestershire force until February 2024.

Sandall said at the time of the warehouse incident, 40% of his workforce had less than five years' experience and added he did not think "we have the resources that we require to meet the demands we face" now.

The inquiry continues.

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