FAMILY HANDOUTSA woman whose mentally ill son killed his father in 2009 says NHS trusts have failed to learn from the tragedy.
Kathleen Barnard spoke after the Care Quality Commission (CQC) report criticized the failure in the case of Nottingham murderer Valdo Calocane.
Calocane had been in the same NHS trust as Ms Barnard’s son William, now in his 40s, who stabbed his grandfather John McGrath to death in 2010.
Ms Barnard said she was not told to stop taking her anti-psychotic medication after being told it was voluntary. Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust said it accepted the CQC report and had “improved processes and standards” since the review.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Ms Barnard said her father’s death, not her son’s, was to blame for her failings in mental health care.
She said William was told he didn’t need to take the medication he had been prescribed for paranoid schizophrenia if he didn’t want to.
“This is not the right attitude,” he said. “Because after nine months my father died.”
Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust I apologize for my mistake at that time.
Reflecting on the new CQC report, Ms Barnard said “it’s the same again really for what happened to us” adding that there were “failures and missed opportunities again”.
“It makes you angry. And it’s scary because you don’t know who’s running on who to protect.”
Calocane was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in 2020 and split four times in less than two years.
In June 2023, he killed University students Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar, both 19, with a knife as they returned from a night out in Nottingham, before stabbing to death Ian Coates, 65, near the school where he worked . as a caregiver.
On Monday, the BBC revealed that a doctor had warned him three years before the Nottingham attack that Calocane’s mental illness was so severe he could “kill people”.
It was one of a series of missed opportunities over three years that could have prevented the murders of Calocane’s mother and brother. told BBC Panorama in the first interview.
The doctor’s warning appeared in a 300-page summary of medical records that the family received only after Calocane was convicted of murder, which Panorama shared.
Following the CQC report, the family of the Calocane victim said those responsible for failing to care for him had “blood on their hands”.
Ms Barnard told the Today program that she can empathize with the Calocane family, but she can also relate to those who kill family members, because her situation is “unique”.
“I lost my father, who I love, and this is my son who did it,” he said. “So it’s a unique situation. It’s a nightmare.”
Asked what she would say to the Calocane victim’s family, who expressed frustration that he had been given an indefinite hospital order instead of a prison sentence, Ms Barnard said: “If someone is mentally unwell then prison is not the right place for them. Because at least in the hospital there will be an attempt to treat him.
He added that hospital was “not an easier option” and that high-security hospitals could be “harder than prison”.
NOTTINGHAMSHIRE POLICEBarnard said he never blamed his son for killing his father because he knew he wasn’t well.
“That’s not the Will I knew and it’s not the Will I know now,” he said.
She added that her son’s mental health team is now “monitoring things” and that he feels “safe” around her.
Ms Barnard’s son now lives with her and he “religiously” takes his own medication, she said.
Nottinghamshire Healthcare said it offered its “deepest apologies” to the families of the Calocane victims.
It said it accepted the conclusions of the CQC report and had “improved processes and standards” since the review took place.
The chief executive, Ifti Majif, said in a statement: “We have a clear plan to address the issues highlighted and do everything we can to understand where we missed opportunities and learn from them.”
Additional reporting by Pia Harold and Ian Aikman.
