There will be another Southport

The first report of the Southport Inquiry was published last week. It delivered a damning assessment of how knife-obsessed teenager Axel Rudakubana, despite being known to seemingly every authority under the Sun, was allowed to murder three children at a dance class in Southport in the summer of 2024.

The report makes for terrifying reading and has, unsurprisingly, garnered significant public interest. But it has overshadowed an ongoing and equally important inquiry, into an equally disturbed individual – namely, Nottingham triple-murderer, Valdo Calocane.

In the early hours of 13 June 2023, a then 32-year-old Calocane fatally stabbed Nottingham University students Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar, both aged 19. Calocane then went on to kill 65-year-old Ian Coates, before stealing his van and driving it into three members of the public (all of whom, miraculously, survived).

There are many disturbing features of the Calocane case. The inquiry has shown how the former Nottingham University student avoided being taken off our streets because mental-health services were wary of the disproportionate detention rates of young black men who required sectioning. Just as egregiously, Calocane has not been charged with murder. Instead, he was allowed to plead guilty to manslaughter because of his mental-health conditions, and is currently serving an indefinite hospital order.

Disturbingly, the Rudakubana and Calocane cases are not aberrations. In June last year, the then 23-year-old Chukwuemeka Ahanonu flipped his car near Leicester Royal Infirmary and staggered from the wreck without any shoes on. He zeroed in on 56-year-old mother-of-two Nila Patel, who stood across the street. After racing towards her, he punched her with ‘full force’ to the ground and then stamped on her head. There was so much blood that a passing doctor told the court he assumed she had been stabbed. She died in hospital of brain injuries two days later, with her traumatised family at her bedside.

Ahanonu admitted manslaughter but denied murder, claiming diminished responsibility on the grounds he had been smoking cannabis. During the police interview, when asked why he was laughing, Ahanonu said, ‘I don’t remember even doing this’.

Finding him guilty of murder, the judge said the murderous assailant selected Patel for three reasons. ‘One was her gender, a woman – you would not have attacked a man. The second was her build and her height – 5’4” tall and of slight build.’ Spencer added he was ‘satisfied’ Patel’s race was the third factor.

But the most important feature of this case isn’t his motivation. It is that Ahanonu should never have been on the streets at all. During his murder trial, the jury was told that he had, until recently, been serving a two-year prison sentence for possession of a bladed article and breaching a suspended sentence order. Yet he had been released after less than a year. In other words, he was meant to be in jail when he murdered Patel.

A similar story of institutional neglect was heard at Sheffield Coroner’s Court in January. In August 2023, 32-year-old Emma Borowy – like Ahanonu, a habitual cannabis user – viciously stabbed 74-year-old Roger Leadbeater as he walked his dog in a park. Leadbeater suffered 124 injuries in the attack.

Borowy was severely mentally unwell. After her arrest, she told police that she had been ‘tricked’ by the devil into killing Leadbeater, an act she considered to be a ‘ritual sacrifice’. She was first sectioned in 2022 after she had killed two goats with a knife. The Sheffield inquest heard that she had subsequently absconded from her ward nine times. Despite this, Borowy was on ‘escorted leave’ when she murdered Leadbeater. The Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation issued an apology to the family, saying it ‘should have done more’. You think?

Do you notice a theme here? Neither Rudakubana, Calocane, Ahanonu nor Borowy were fit to be in society. Rudakubana was referred to the UK counter-extremism programme, Prevent, three times. Calocane, a man with a history of violence and paranoid delusions, was allowed to wander the streets unmedicated because he disliked needles. Ahanonu was supposed to be in prison when he murdered an innocent mother. Borowy was supposed to be in an institution when she murdered Leadbeater. How was any of this allowed to happen?

The British state is fraying. It is failing to see problems, let alone address them. Anyone with eyes can tell that our high streets have become blighted by barely cogent, violent characters who are ready to explode, often in a fog of cannabis smoke. We dip our heads, shuffle past, hoping not to fall into their line of fire.

The consequences of this institutional failure are profound. Indeed, it is hard to avoid the impression that there is a Valdo Calocane on every high street now – another time bomb waiting to go off. The failing British state is putting all of us on the front line.

Andy Jones is a journalist and broadcaster.