The partner of Ian Coates – the beloved Nottingham grandad who was stabbed to death by killer Valdo Calocane – spent more than four ‘agonising’ hours believing he had died in a car crash.

Elaine Newton, Mr Coates’ long-term partner, told the Nottingham Inquiry on Tuesday, March 24, that she had been initially told that he had died in a road accident.

She had been misinformed by a police officer who had been given the wrong information, telling the judge-led inquiry that this meant she struggled to accept the heartbreaking truth when she was later told it.

“They [police later on] looked shocked on their faces and said ‘you have got the wrong information. Ian’s been killed and he’s been stabbed’.”

When asked by Rachel Langdale KC, counsel for the inquiry, what this felt like, she said: “I felt like he had died twice.

“The first information I accepted but the second one I couldn’t accept. It was just a mess.”

This was not the only shocking fact that surfaced during the inquiry’s hearing on Tuesday, where two of Mr Coates’ three sons gave evidence on how they believed they were an ‘afterthought’.

Brothers James and Lee explained to the inquiry that, as Nottingham residents, they first learned about the chaos Calocane had inflicted on the city in the early hours of June 13, 2023, through work WhatsAapp groups – but had no confirmation of their dad’s death until the evening.

The Coates brothers went to James’ house as their suspicions over what had happened intensified, they told the inquiry.

James said that his wife and mum had called a helpline to try and get more information, with the family receiving a call back from the police 10 minutes before the outgoing Chief Constable Kate Meynell went on TV to do a press conference about the Nottingham attacks.

“We knew that he was still there when we got the phone call from the police around five O’clock,” James said.

“I remember how hard it was to restrain ourselves [and not go to the scene].

“It’s only recently through the inquiry that I’ve learnt he was there until half past eight at night.”

It recently emerged that Mr Coates’ body had been left in Magdala Road, Mapperley Park, for 15 hours, which his family said was “gut-wrenching”.

James and Lee said they had gone to the vigil held by the University of Nottingham after the Nottingham attacks, but had learnt about the huge gathering outside of Nottingham’s Council House on June 15 through a journalist.

Family members asked the council why they had not been invited to a vigil where they were going to speak about Ian, the brothers told the inquiry.

“At this point it already felt that we were a bit of an afterthought,” Lee said.

The bereaved son explained he felt “it was was right to thank the people of Nottingham that had come out to support us”, adding that he was told around 7,000 people had gathered in Old Market Square two days after Calocane’s killings.

Lee later said he felt second class in comparison to others as the Coates brothers had to “forage and find out information ourselves”, contacting the police rather than them contacting Ian’s loved ones, and not initially being invited to the city council vigil.

His brother said the Coates family was never told the full picture promptly, forcing him to try understand what had happened through unrelibable social media posts.

“I was going on Twitter, probably the worst place to go for any credible information, [and] putting his name in,” James said.

“If we got the answers, that I now know that the police had, they could have just told us and it would have put my mind at ease a lot.”

He later added: “We were drip fed very little information from official sources, through the whole process.”

James told the inquiry he did not understand why details of the police WhatsApp group where officers shared information inappropriately were not shared with the Coates family earlier.

His brother Lee said that the terrible communication, combined with the failings revealed in the years since Calocane’s crimes and the inquiry into them, were an “endless kick in the teeth”.

The chair was also told how both Ian’s partner and sons felt like they had not been helped to understand the court process, which in January 2024 resulted in Calocane being sentenced to an indefinite hospital order after admitting manslaughter by diminished responsibility.

At the end of Tuesday’s evidence, the siblings gave powerful statements on what the inquiry had uncovered over the first four weeks of its evidence.

“The amount of new information that has surfaced astounds me,” James said.

“Over the last two-and-a-half years I thought I’d heard it all, from missed opportunities, misconduct, clerical mistakes and institutional laziness but unfortunately more revelations are coming out each week.”

Lee added that he was “shocked and dissatisfied” with the responses that witnesses from Nottingham’s intitutions had provided during questioning in previous hearings.

“I stand here today to fight for my dad. His life mattered. He deserved better than what happened to him and I will not stop saying that until it is acknowledged not just in words, but in meaningful change.”

The inquiry continues.