Son of man stabbed to death says authorities ‘aren’t learning’ to avoid mental health homicides
The son of a man fatally stabbed by a paranoid schizophrenic in 2007 says “the same recommendations keep coming up” to this day to avoid mental health homicides, yet authorities “aren’t learning very much”.
Julian Hendy, whose father Philip was killed in Bristol, says despite “100 to 120 people every year across the UK being killed by somebody with a severe mental illness”, he doesn’t believe the authorities are doing enough.
The issue has been highlighted by the case of Valdo Calocane, a paranoid schizophrenic who stabbed three people to death in Nottingham last year and ordered to be detained in a high-security hospital on Thursday.
Mr Hendy, who has been supporting the families of the Nottingham attack victims in court, says: “What we see is the same recommendations keep coming up time and time again.
“The evidence doesn’t seem to be that they’re learning very much. And we’re not talking about difficult things here.
“We’re talking about doing proper risk assessments, keeping proper records and listening to families.”
“People try to work on the principle of least restriction. So they’re not assertive enough. And they work on the basis of what the patient wants rather than the public,” he adds.
The circumstances surrounding the Nottingham killings have a striking resemblance to the events that led up to another paranoid schizophrenic, Zephaniah McLeod, arming himself with a knife and attacking and killing at random in the streets of Birmingham in 2020.
Like Calacone, McLeod also had a history of violence, had stopped attending mental health appointments and refused to take his medication.
23-year-old Jacob Billington died in the attack. Jacob’s best friend, Michael Callaghan, was left with life changing injuries.
The mother of a man who was stabbed by a paranoid schizophrenic “who got lost in the system” has said “a tragic lack of risk assessments” has allowed such attacks to take place.
Anne Callaghan, Michael’s mother, has spoken out after Calacone’s sentencing.
Calocane, stabbed students Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar, both 19, and 65-year-old school caretaker Ian Coates in Nottingham in June 2023 after a series of missed opportunities to prevent the killings.
Calocane had previously been detained in hospital four times, and a warrant for his arrest had been issued months before his deadly rampage.
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The case brought back unhappy memories for Mrs Callaghan of the attack on her son by Zephaniah McLeod, who also had paranoid schizophrenia.
McLeod’s knife severed Mr Callaghan’s jugular vein and carotid artery, causing him to lose so much blood he had a stroke. Mr Callaghan’s friend Jacob Billington was stabbed through the neck and died in the attack.
A judge later said McLeod, who had a long history of violent offences, got “lost in the system” after being freed from prison during the COVID lockdown in April 2020 – five months before the deadly attacks in Birmingham.
An independent investigation commissioned by the NHS later found that despite McLeod’s mental health problems and violent history, upon his release he was “not subject to any form of supervision, nor was he obliged to engage with agencies such as the police if they were to offer him any support”.
In 2018, McLeod had told a psychiatrist that he was “hearing voices, both male and female telling him to “kill ’em… stab ’em… they are talking about you”.
He was sentenced to life with a minimum term of 21 years at Birmingham Crown Court in 2021, after admitting the manslaughter of Jacob Billington, four counts of attempted murder and three charges of wounding.
Since the attacks on their sons, Mrs Callaghan and Jacob’s mother Jo Billington have spoken out about changes that need to be made to stop such an attack happening again.
Zephaniah McLeod, left, and Valdo Calocane, right, both carried out killings after a series of failings by public services
Following the sentencing of Calocane, who psychiatrists also said had heard voices telling him to kill people, Mrs Callaghan told Sky News: “When the news first came through (of the sentencing) I felt like I’d been punched.
“I felt a real physical sickness… it’s the same kind of thing that has happened again.”
She added: “It’s just heartbreaking, isn’t it… (Calocane) was known to be dangerous and was at large.”
Mrs Callaghan said that she didn’t feel the recommendations made at the end of the independent investigation after the deaths were very strong, and added: “One of the agencies involved admitted to us that no changes had been made up to the point we spoke to them 12 months ago.”
The report made five recommendations to improve services, including a call for the Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Foundation Trust to develop an up-to-date operational policy covering prison discharge services.
From left: Ian Coates, Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley were killed in the Nottingham attacks
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‘Justice has not been served’
Mrs Callaghan said “there’s a tragic lack of risk assessments” when it comes to violent people with a mental illness who have been in contact with public services such as the police, prisons or mental health services.
She added: “How can that happen when somebody is known to be dangerous?”
Barnaby’s mother Emma Webber said after Calocane was sentenced on Thursday: “True justice has not been served today. We as a devastated family have been let down by multiple agency failings and ineffectiveness.”
“We trusted in our system, foolishly as it turned out,” she said, telling the assistant chief constable of Nottinghamshire Police Rob Griffin: “You have blood on your hands.”
MP Mike Amesbury has pleaded guilty to assault by beating for punching a man in Cheshire.
The Runcorn and Helsby MP appeared at Chester Magistrates’ Court on Thursday morning where he admitted attacking 45-year-old Paul Fellows in Main Street, Frodsham, Cheshire, in October.
Speaking outside the court, he said the incident was “highly regrettable” and he was “sincerely sorry” to Mr Fellows and his family.
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CCTV footage showed Amesbury, who has been an MP since 2017, punching Mr Fellows on the ground.
Other previously released videos from another angle show Amesbury punching Mr Fellows repeatedly after knocking him to the floor as members of the public intervened.
It was reported to police at 2.48pm on Saturday 26 October.
The court heard how Amesbury told Mr Fellows “you won’t threaten your MP again” after punching him in the head with enough force to knock him to the ground.
The 55-year-old politician is currently an independent MP after he was suspended by Labour at the end of October when the CCTV footage emerged.
He will continue to be suspended so remains as an independent.
Pic: Richard Townshend/UK Parliament/PA
The court heard Mr Fellows recognised Amesbury in the taxi rank in Frodsham town centre at about 2am on 26 October last year.
Both were alone and had been drinking.
Alison Storey, prosecuting, said Mr Fellows approached the MP to remonstrate about a bridge closure in the town and CCTV then shows they spoke for several minutes but there was no aggression or raised voices.
Mr Fellows then started to walk away but Amesbury re-engaged and was heard saying “what” a few times before shouting it.
The victim then put his hands in his pockets and turned towards the taxi queue and when he turned back Amesbury punched him in the head, knocking him to the ground.
He then punched Mr Fellows again, at least five times, Ms Storey said.
She told the court he was then heard saying “you won’t threaten your MP again will you”.
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Amesbury was voluntarily interviewed under caution by Cheshire Police in October and was charged with common assault on 7 November.
At the time, Amesbury said what happened was “deeply regrettable” and he was co-operating with police.
A Labour Party spokesman said: “It is right that Mike Amesbury has taken responsibility for his unacceptable actions.
“He was rightly suspended by the Labour Party following the announcement of the police investigation.
“We cannot comment further whilst legal proceedings are still ongoing.”
Amesbury is set to be sentenced next month. If he is sent to prison or given a suspended sentence he could lose his seat.
A sentence of less than a year, even if it is suspended, would leave him liable to the recall process, which would trigger a by-election if 10% of registered voters in his seat sign a petition calling for it.
A jail term of more than a year would mean he automatically loses his seat.
UK
‘I have nightmares of dead bodies’: Patients dying and undiscovered for hours in hospital corridors
Patients are dying in corridors and going undiscovered for hours while the sick are left to soil themselves, nurses have said, revealing the scale of the corridor crisis inside the UK’s hospitals.
In a “harrowing” report built from the experiences of more than 5,000 NHS nursing staff, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) found almost seven in 10 (66.81%) say they are delivering care in overcrowded or unsuitable places, including converted cupboards, corridors and even car parks, on a daily basis.
Demoralised staff are looking after as many as 40 patients in a single corridor, unable to access oxygen, cardiac monitors, suction and other lifesaving equipment.
Women are miscarrying in corridors, while some nurses report being unable to carry out adequate CPR on patients having heart attacks.
Sara (not her real name) said she was on shift when a doctor told her there was a dying patient who had been waiting in the hospital’s corridor for six hours.
“It took a further two hours to get her into an adequate care space to make her clean and comfortable,” she told Sky News.
“That’s a human being, someone in the last hours of their life in the middle of a corridor with a detoxing patient vomiting and being abusive behind them and a very poorly patient in front of them, who was confused, screaming in pain. It was awful on the family, and it was awful on the patient.”
Dead patients ‘not found for hours’
A nurse working in the southeast of England quit her job after witnessing an elderly lady in “animal-like conditions”.
She told the RCN: “A 90-year-old lady with dementia was scared, crying and urinating in the bed after asking several times for help to the toilet. Seeing that lady, frightened and subjected to animal-like conditions is what broke me.
“At the end of that shift, I handed in my notice with no job to go to. I will not work where this is a normal day-to-day occurrence.”
Another nurse in the South East said a patient died in a corridor and “wasn’t discovered for hours”.
Sara told Sky another woman needed resuscitating after the oxygen underneath her trolley ran out. Sara was one of just two nurses caring for more than 30 patients on that corridor.
“I have had nightmares – I have a nightmare that I walk out in the corridor and there are dead bodies in body bags on the trolleys,” she said, growing visibly emotional.
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No electricity to plug in computers
One nurse, who spoke to Sky News, said the conditions were “undignified” and “inhumane”.
“It’s not just corridors – we utilise chairs, cupboards, whatever space is available in the hospital to be repurposed into a care space, in the loosest sense of that term. These spaces are unsafe.”
Some spaces, she said, don’t even have basic electricity for nurses to plug in their computers.
The nurse, who spoke to Sky on the condition of anonymity, said she has experienced burnout multiple times over the state of her workplace.
“I have come to the conclusion this week I don’t think I can continue working in the NHS or as a nurse,” she said.
“It breaks my soul; I love what I do when I am able to do it in the right way. I like caring for people, I like making people better, I also like providing a dignified death.”
She added: “I want to look after the institution I was born into, but for the sake of my family and my mental health, I don’t know how much more I can give.”
With 32,000 nursing vacancies in England alone, data also shows around one in eight nurses leave the profession within five years of qualifying.
Nurses are being forced to provide care in hospital corridors and car parks. Pic: PA
Staff ‘not proud of the care they are giving’
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) says the testimony, which runs to over 400 pages, must mark a “moment in time”. In May 2024, the RCN declared a “national emergency” over corridor care in NHS services.
Professor Nicola Ranger, RCN general secretary and chief executive, said: “At the moment, [nursing staff] are not proud of the care they are giving.”
“We hear stories of escalation areas and temporary beds that have been open for two years,” she added. “That is no longer escalation, it’s understaffed and underfunded capacity that is pretty shocking care for patients. We have to get a grip on that.”
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She called the situation “a disgrace”, citing abuse of staff as another reason for people leaving the profession in droves.
Last week, a nurse was left with “life-changing injuries” after being stabbed by a man while at work.
“The NHS used to be the envy of the world and we need to take a long hard look at ourselves and say ‘what needs to change?’
“The biggest concern for us is that the public Is starting to lose a little faith in their care, and that has to stop. We absolutely have to sort this out.”
Commenting on the RCN’s report, Duncan Burton, chief nursing officer for England, said the NHS had experienced one of the “toughest winters” in recent months, and the report “should never be considered the standard to which the NHS aspires”.
“Despite the challenges the NHS faces, we are seeing extraordinary efforts from staff who are doing everything they can to provide safe, compassionate care every day,” he added. “As a nurse, I know how distressing it can be when you are unable to provide the very best standards of care for patients.”
Have you experienced corridor care in an NHS hospital? Get in touch on NHSstories@sky.uk
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