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Their lives have been changed forever
Two Nottingham residents who were horrifically injured during the Nottingham attacks today revealed their torment.
Wayne Birkett and Sharon Miller were struck by a van driven by paranoid schizophrenic killer Valdo Calocane on June 13, 2023, during his terrible rampage across the city.
Before hitting Mr Birkett, Ms Miller, and Marcin Gawronski, he had stabbed to death students Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar and grandad Ian Coates – whose stolen van he used to try to murder three people heading to work later that morning.
After killing Mr Coates, he drove along Magdala Road, back onto Woodborough Road and towards the city centre, where he found hard-working grandfather Mr Birkett.
The forklift truck driver was walking along Milton Street when the triple-killer swerved and hit him from behind just after 5.23 am.
Seven minutes later, Calocane, who was being followed by a police van with its sirens activated, arrived at the junction of Market Street and Upper Parliament Street, where Ms Miller and Mr Gawronski were standing and drove into them too.
The van attack changed the lives of Mr Birkett and Ms Miller forever, and they and their partners gave evidence at the Nottingham Inquiry on Thursday, March 26.
The judge-led inquiry is examining the failures of Nottingham’s institutions, including those by Nottinghamshire Police and mental healthcare provider Nottinghamshire Healthcare Trust.
The inquiry also heard evidence from two police officers, the first being Detective Chief Inspector Claire Gould, who had appointed other officers to act as family liaisons for victims during the court process.
Last the inquiry expecting heard from Det Con Raj Johal, who had acted as one of these liaisons.
Our live coverage of the Nottingham Inquiry has now finished, but you can still catch up below.
Key Events
The evidence hearing has now finished.
The Nottingham Inquiry will resume at 10am on Monday, March 30.
Questioned if she definitely did not know anything about past incidents with Calocane by Sophie Cartwright KC, counsel for the survivors, the retired officer said: “I hadn’t been briefed with regards to his previous contact with the police.
“I would hear from different sources within the police that he may have been known.”
She told Ms Cartwright she knew nothing about incidents involving Calocane in 2020, his attempt to visit MI5’s headquarters, the attack on a police officer, or attacks on his flatmates.
Ms Cartwright KC challenged the witness, stating that Mr Birkett’s partner had a clear recollection that she had been told by former DC Johal that police definitely had no contact with Calocane.
Retired DC Johal said that she told Tracey she did not know, and had not provided the claimed definitive answer.
The former family liaison officer said she did not know anything about Calocane’s past interactions with the force before the Nottingham attacks.
“I wasn’t aware of any police contact with [Calocane] until his inquiry,” she said, referring to Mr Birkett’s partner claiming that she was told Nottinghamshire Police had no knowledge of Calocane by the retired officer.
She acknowledged she should have gone back to colleague to ask for details on previous contact with Calocane, but admitted she had not done this.
“I didn’t [ask] and I should have done, and I should have clarified that with Tracey.”
We’re now hearing evidence from retired detective constable Raj Johal, who had been the family liaison officer for the survivors.
The retired officer has told the inquiry that she was told to visit Ms Miller and Mr Gawronski and the following day was asked to visit Mr Birkett in hospital.
Asked by Ms Millar if she asked for any extra support at any point while supporting three different people, she said: “No, I didn’t. But on reflection, perhaps I should have done.”
She felt on the “outer circle” of the investigation and was not included in decision making meetings – but she did not question this.
“I wasn’t able to fully update the families as much as perhaps they needed, but I wasn’t in the know, so it was impossible to say what they needed to know.”
Sophie Cartwright KC, counsel for the survivors, asked the officer why they had been referred to as ‘walking wounded’ by police.
“I know that term is used in the initial briefing from detective superintendent Sanders,” DCI Gould said.
“The description he used was that Sharon and Marcin were described as walking wounded [Wayne was in more serious condition].”
The officer said she could “appreciate the victims feel that is insensitive language”, but she said it was being used as a triage description and she had conveyed this to the family liaison officers.
Ms Cartwight KC asked if Nottinghamshire Police had treated the survivors as secondary to the families of the victims.
“They were never perceived by me or by DC Johal [the family liaison officer], as far as everything I witnessed in terms of how she dealt with them, as secondary.
“These were victims of a really serious incident, we tailored our response to them always.”
However, Ms Cartwright KC pushed back on this, showing an email where she explained to her colleagues that she could have not given the survivors – referred to as “RTC victims” for road traffic collision – family liaison officers.
The officer admitted she had written the email “very poorly” and that it would be hurtful for the survivors.
Angela Patrick, counsel for the bereaved families, has just questioned DCI Gould.
The officer told Ms Patrick that she believed the senior investigator in the case had shared the full timeline of Calocane’s interaction with mental health services with the families.
Ms Patrick asked if there should have also been a timeline of Calocane’s interactions with police provided to his victims and their families.
“They should have been given full information in relation to both the previous contact with the police and [Calocane’s] previous contact with mental health services.”
Senior investigating officer detective superintendent Leigh Sanders decided to delay telling the families about misconduct cases after a meeting on October 13, DCI Gould said.
The investigator decided due diligence had not been done and said he would come back to DCI Gould, according to the officer giving evidence.
“I believed it was the right thing to do, I am a mother myself and I think that those families had a right to know.
“Also from working in PSD you have the Police Reform Act and the police conduct regulations which state that these are interested persons and they have a right to be told of these investigations.”
In December the investigator asked for the details of all PSD matters and said a lengthy discussion was needed before more information was released, DCI Gould told the inquiry.
Mr Blake KC suggested that media interest and potential judicial review was driving the SIO to provide more information, rather than it just being provided to the families.
The officer said she thought this was due to PSD telling Dep Supt Sanders that the special constable had been dealt with, rather than it being driven by external concerns.
Asked who had “dropped the ball” by Mr Blake KC, she said it could have been Dep Supt Sanders – who according to her was going to meet PSD and get back to her when the information could be released but this did not happen.
DCI Gould said she was made aware in September of the special constable and counter clerk who had inappropriately accessed information without a police purpose.
The officer told the inquiry she had been waiting for an agreed way of wording the information from the police’s Professional Standards Department (PSD).
Mr Blake KC why information about another officer, PC Matthew Gell, had not been provided in October, as the DCI had the details on this, but she said it would be ideal to inform the families and survivors about all three misconduct cases.
However, liaison officers provided this information at different times, creating an inconsistency of information amongst the families.
Asked if there was frustration over not getting this information over but waiting for PSD form of words, DCI Gould said: “I was keen to get the form of words from PSD. It did take longer than I would have expected but I don’t know why.”
DCI Gould has accepted, under questioning by Mr Blake KC, said that messaging from the police over Calocane’s warrant could have been clearer.
“It was always the intention to inform the families in relation to the outstanding warrant temporary DCC Griffin was very clear in a meeting with myself and the family liaison officers that that was to be conveyed to the families and the survivors before [Calocane] was charged.”
On the warrant she added: “In hindsight now that message was not as clear as it could have been.”
The information passed to the families was that the warrant related to a historical low-level assault on an emergency worker, but did not say that police had not acted on the warrant to try to find Calocane.
The break has now ended and Mr Blake KC is asking DCI Gould whether the diminished responsibility, which ended up changing Calocane’s plea from murder to manslaughter, should have been explained to his victims and their families better.
“I believe the families and the survivors would have benefited more from knowing that a psychiatric defence was a potential line of defence,” the officer said.
“So I feel that should have been communicated earlier and preferably by the CPS.”
The officer said she had not been aware of briefings like this happening before.
She added a CPS explanation of diminished responsibility should have been supplied to families and survivors.
The inquiry also heard that the psychiatric report on Calocane, which was received by the senior investigator on October 3, 2023, was shared with different families at different times.
The inquiry is now taking a break for lunch.
It will restart at 2pm, with DCI Gould continuing to give evidence.
Asked why Ian Coates’ partnerElaine Newton had intially been told he had died in a car crash, the officer said: “Quite clearly there was a terrible error and the families should not have been given the wrong information as to Ian Coates’ cause of death.”
DCI Gould said she could not explain why the officer had the wrong information, having been asked by Mr Blake KC if the police control room had possibly misinformed the officer that told Ms Newton.
“I think it’s quite clear that the officer feels awful about what happened, but that doesn’t take away the impact,” DCI Gould added.
The officer also apologised for the delay in informing Mr Coates’ sons.
“They should have been told sooner. I take full responsibility for that.”
She told the inquiry she had not been made aware by other officers that James Coates’ number was on the police’s incident log.
DCI Gould has told the inquiry that informing David Webber of his son Barnaby’s death over the phone was not best practice, but could not be delayed further.
“I was incredibly concerned that that message would get back to the families,” she said.
“The very ethos of family liaison is that families are told through official channels.”
The officer explained she was not aware that the University of Nottingham had already been called by paramedics about the death of their students.
DCI Gould has been recalling to the inquiry her concern when she realised that the families of killed Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar had yet not been informed despite police knowing their identity and the growing chance they could be publically named.
“I had been notified that the family of Ian Coates had been notified of his death by response officers during the night but that the message had not been passed to the families of Barnaby and Grace,” she said.
She said this concerned her and needed to be done “urgently”.
When asked by Mr Blake KC if the death message should have happened already as media interest grew in the hours after the students’ deaths, she said “absolutely”.
Asked why the parents had not been informed, DCI Gould said: “I believe, from being present in the incident room that morning, and the amount of frenetic activity that was going on that morning.
“There had been the arrest of VC and Operation Plato declared. So I believe it was the combination with the operational context of everything that was happening that those death messages were not delivered.”
Mr Blake KC asked if this had not got the attention it deserved, to which the officer said yes.
The DCI explained she thought the situation would require 12 liaison officers, but had appointed six for the bereaved and four for the survivors.
“However, when I made enquiries, which entailed essentially ringing around the FLO cadre, there was not enough that were available to be deployed for various reasons,” she told the inquiry.
The four officers sent to help the survivors were then reduced to just one, as they had been taken from the serious collision unit – which had to investigate two fatal crashes on the night of June 13.
DCI Gould agreed, when asked by Mr Blake KC, there were “quite fundamental resourcing issues within Nottinghamshire Police” and agreed there should have been more liaison officers.
The inquiry has been told that senior investigating officer Leigh Sanders was supposed to set the aims and objectives for family liaison officers.
Mr Blake KC outlined that the liaisons had to balance disclosure with over sharing in a way that could comprise an investigation.
“All the information given via the family liaison officers to families is dictated and directed by the SIO,” DCI Gould told the inquiry.
We are now hearing evidence from detective chief inspector Claire Gould of Nottinghamshire Police, who appointed family liason officers and coordinated their deployments.
Each of the bereaved family groups, as well as the survivors, were allocated a liaison officer, or in some cases two, who were supposed to be the conduit between them and the prosecutors of Valdo Calocane and help them stay informed generally.
Julian Blake KC, counsel for the inquiry, has taken the officer through different relevant policies about treating victims of crime in a “respectful, sensitive, and tailored and professional” manner.
The officer confirmed that the survivors and bereaved families were entitled to “enhanced assistance” due to the seriousness of Calocane’s crime.
“They have access to quicker updates, more detailed updates, to ensure they’re provided with the highest level of information,” DCI Gould said.
Ms Miller said that as a result of the attacks, along with the misconduct and lack of transparency over Nottinghamshire Police’s past dealings with Calocane, she had completely lost faith in the police.
“I have lost all faith in the police. [I’ve] got no faith in them whatsoever.”
“All they keep doing is blaming each other for all the mistakes.”
The survivor also said that she thought agencies thought it was easy to keep her in the dark as she struggled to leave her home following June 13, 2023.
“I feel many took advantage of the fact that, as a result of the attack on me, I have found leaving my home so difficult.”
When asked about what would have helped them through their ordeal, the couple said they would have benefitted from more in-person meetings and better explanation of what was happening.
They added that they had been significantly financially impacted, as Mr Reed needed to care for his partner but did not meet the criteria for Carer’s Allowance.
Mr Reed said the couple could not even go to the vigils as they could not afford to go anywhere.
The survivors have now concluded their evidence and we will soon hear from two more Nottinghamshire Police officers.
“I think it’s disgusting how long it took them to get him,” Ms Miller said of the police’s failure to apprehend Calocane before he injured her and the other survivors.
“There’s that much CCTV about where he was walking, why did it take so long to get him?”
Ms Langdale KC asked Ms Miller how she had felt when Calocane pleaded guilty to the attempted murder of her and the other injured survivors.
“It was just another downer to be honest with you, that he can even say that he wanted to kill me. I don’t know the bloke. I’ve never met him, so… just a shock.”
Ms Miller said she told DC Johal, her assigned liaison officer, she did not want to know anything about Calocane.
“I didn’t see his face so I didn’t really want to know anything about him. Because he was on the TV all of the time, that’s how I seen his face.”
She told the inquiry she had never had a conversation with senior investigating officer Detective Superintendent Leigh Sanders about the case.
Her and her partner were not contacted about going to court anything about going to the court, they told the inquiry.
“I didn’t want him to see me,” Ms Miller said, explaining she would not have wanted to attend in person, but would have wanted to listen.
When asked by Ms Langdale about how her day started on June 13, 2023, attacks survivor Ms Miller said it largely was normal.
“I got up at 4.30am, let the dog out, had a cup of tea, went to catch the bus. It was late as it always is.”
She was hit while crossing the road at the junction of the junction of Market Street and Upper Parliament Street.
“I look over to make sure there’s nowt coming, I see the police car behind the white van with the flashing looks. Next minute sirens come on, and the next minute I’m in the air.
“As soon as the sirens came on, it must have spooked him and that’s when he come after me.
“I thought I was a goner if you want the truth.”
Ms Miller was a patient on a major trauma ward for five days, having fractured 12 ribs and damaged her spleen.
“I don’t like hospitals at the best of times, so I didn’t like it at all,” she added.
Mr Birkett’s partner had told the Nottingham Inquiry that the survivors of Calocane’s attacks had been “very much forgotten” in the aftermath.
“We were forgotten for quite some length of time and put in the background.”
She accused Nottingham’s agencies of torturing survivors and the families of those killed through their failures and lack of transparency.
“Wayne and I put our lives on hold to fully participate in this inquiry as it is so important to Wayne and me.
“It should have not needed this inquiry for the police in particular to tell the truth and be honest.
“All organisations involved in this inquiry should have been open from the beginning and they have caused extra suffering for the families.
“They should have been allowed to just get on with grieving, you have tortured these families over and over again.”
“I want to thank the families of Grace, Barnaby, and Ian for all they have done and for all their bravery and courage,” Mr Birkett told the inquiry.
He then thanked a long list of people who had aided him on the day, as well as the medics who treated his horrific injuries and helped him in rehab.
“It is so important for me to get the answers from this inquiry and finally learn the truth,” he added in a statement to the inquiry.
Ms Hodgson had sent an email to Kate Meynell to say that emailing Wayne, who had a brain injury, to inform him of police misconduct on Whatsapp was not been suitable.
She told the police boss that the survivors seemed to be forgotten by police, having not informed them before the information was released to the media.
Mr Birkett said that they were learning through social media and TV about the Whatsapp messages in February 2024.
“We were finding out the wrong way. Obviously she’s obviously overlooked that Wayne’s injuries include this severe, serious brain injury.”
Asked if the police had accurately described his injuries, Mr Birkett said the force had referred to broken bones and not the reality of his severe brain injury as “embarassing”.
Mr Birkett explained that he had not been told adequately about Calocane being sentenced for manslaughter not murder.
“I thought it was horrifying, listening to what had happened, because I wasn’t expecting it at all,” he said.
The couple did not meet anyone from CPS to talk about what would happen at the sentencing hearing, they told the inquiry.
Ms Langdale asked how Mr Birkett was accommodated in the court.
“I had to exit the court a lot,” he said. “I had to literally walk past [Calocane] probably 2 metres from him, every time I wanted to leave the court.”
There should have been a meeting beforehand to tell them what to expect, Ms Hodgson said.
“The court room was so packed, Wayne’s family were all sat on benches,” she added.
“He was really close to all of us, I didn’t expect that. If anyone had to leave the room, having to walk past him”
Mr Birkett said the sentencing hearing was too packed and should have been elsewhere.
“Since what happened it has been a rollercoaster,” Ms Hodgson, Mr Birkett’s partner, said.
She added: “We’ve been living in a bubble of constant hospital appointments.
“I was struggling because obviously Wayne has got hardly any memory or he’s got no memory at all. He doesn’t recognise things and he is obviously relying on me for everything.”
Ms Hodgson said she had been told by her family liaison officer that Nottinghamshire Police had no past contact with Calocane.
“I asked her [DC Johal] if VC was known to the police, she said there was no history of [Calocane] at all with the police.
“I did ask her if there’d been any tests done, drug testing, had he been drinking? I just couldn’t understand why would someone do this.
“She was very helpful. But obviously she’s been sitting on all this information that she already knew. All the previous incidents she would have known.”
Mr Birkett added “I just wanted to know what kind of man he is.”
“The impression was he wasn’t known to the police at all, that this was the first offence,” his partner added.
Rachel Langdale KC, counsel for the inquiry, is questioning victim Wayne Birkett and his partner Tracey about the attacks.
Ms Langdale outlined he was admitted to intensive care where he was ventilated for three days and later moved to a major trauma ward and rehabilitation unit.
“What are the first things you can remember?” the inquiry counsel asked.
“All I remember is I woke up in Linden Lodge, I didn’t know why I was in pain, why my head was hurting.
“They couldn’t give me the answers to why I was there.”
His time in the rehab unit was a “real struggle” Tracey said, as Mr Birkett did not know what had happened and he did not recognise her at all.
He had suffered a traumatic brain injury as result of two skull fractures, and had bruising to body and a right shoulder injury.
The inquiry will today hear from DC Johal, who told Mr Birkett’s partner Tracey that Calocane was not known to the police prior to June 2023, according to the survivors’ opening statement.
The Nottingham Inquiry has heard about all Calocane’s many interactions with the police before his killings, which include an assault on a police officer, him stalking and attacking flatmates, and him scaring a young Italian student into jumping out of a flat window.
DC Johal was the shared family liason officer for the survivors of Calocane’s attacks.
The survivors’ opening statement explained Ms Miller is a mother to her much-loved daughter and lives with her childhood sweetheart Martin Reed, who will join her in giving evidence today.
Ms Miller was making her way to work as a cleaner for DTZ on the morning of June 13, 2023.
This was a job she had done diligently for over 27 years, the statement added.
However, he work life ended on the day she was attacked and she has not been able to work since.
In the opening statement, Ms Miller thanked a member of the public who came to her aid immediately after she was attacked, Melissa Austin, who she hopes one day to be able to thank in person.
Wayne Birkett, Marcin Gawronski and Sharon Miller were all seriously injured after Valdo Calocane deliberately drove a van into them(Image: Nottinghamshire Police)
According to the opening statement to the inquiry provided by the survivors, Mr Birkett was a hard-working fork lift truck driver working for ABB Furse when he was attacked by Calocane.
He has been described as a loving partner, father and grandfather.
Wayne in this opening statement said he appreciated that he is lucky to be alive, however, has said repeatedly he wished his life had been taken rather than those of Grace, Barney and Ian.
Tracey, his partner, feels that a large part of the man he was before the attack did in fact die that morning, the statement added.
[Calocane’s] attempted murder of him has stolen a lifetime of memories as a result of the fractured skull and permanent brain injury he suffered.
The opening statement also explained that his partner Tracey Hodgson, who will join him in giving evidence today, took a year off work to care and support him.
She did this first through his coma and then when he conscious again, helping him with his ongoing rehabilitation for his brain injury.
Wayne Birkett, survivor of the Nottingham attacks, arrives at Mary Ward House in Tavistock Place, London. Nottingham attacks inquiry, Friday, March 19, 2026. Mary Ward House, Tavistock Place, London. On June 13 2023 Valdo Calocane, who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and had previous interactions with health services and the police, killed three people and seriously injured three other people in Nottingham city centre. On 22 April 2025, in a statement to the House of Commons, the then Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, the Rt Hon Shabana Mahmood MP, formally announced the Nottingham Inquiry and that it would be chaired by Her Honour Deborah Taylor. Photo: Friday, March 19, 2026. (Copyright: Joseph Raynor/ Reach PLC)
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