Officer 'frustrated' by police updates during attacks

A retired murder investigation officer has told a public inquiry she felt "frustrated" by what she said was a lack of information from her colleagues on the day of the Nottingham attacks.

Valdo Calocane stabbed Barnaby Webber, Grace O'Malley-Kumar and Ian Coates to death before trying to kill three others on 13 June 2023.

As the brutal attacks unfolded, former Det Insp Pamela Dowson, of Nottinghamshire Police, was called to the scene in Ilkeston Road, where Barnaby and Grace had been killed, but said she "wasn't updated sufficiently".

On Monday, the ongoing inquiry was told Dowson and another inspector were not told the attacks were initially being treated as a terrorist incident.

The Nottingham Inquiry, being held at Mary Ward House in London, is examining the events that led up to the attacks and the response to them.

Retired senior judge Deborah Taylor KC is chairing the inquiry, which is hearing from more than 100 witnesses over a total of nine weeks.

Dowson told the inquiry her responsibility on the day was to deal with scene management. She was called to the incident in Ilkeston Road shortly after 04:00 BST.

As she looked at the log, she said she received a call from Insp Peter Shaw, who was the response policing inspector at the time, before she made her way to the scene.

"He said 'well I'm here', and I said 'are you OK?'

"And he said 'it's really bad'," Dowson said.

By 05:14, the inquiry heard Calocane had stabbed to death Ian Coates, and by 05:23, he had hit Wayne Birkett with Ian's van, and by 05:29, he had also struck Sharon Miller and Marcin Gawronski.

Dowson said she was not informed the incidents were linked until Calocane had been arrested.

She said she would have expected "anyone from the top desk" - referring to the senior team in the control room at the time - to have told her.

She added by the time she was informed about what was going on, "predominantly" by Shaw, she was "frustrated".

"I felt on that night that somebody could have been a point of contact for me," Dowson said.

The inquiry heard Dowson was not using a police radio on the day of the attacks, and she said she usually used her mobile phone and preferred to do so.

By 05:30 - after Calocane ran over three people - the inquiry was told the force had declared Operation Plato - a national identifier of a "marauding terrorist attack".

However, Dowson and Shaw were not immediately informed.

It was not until after 10:00 that Shaw said he was told the attacks were being treated as a terrorist incident, by which point he said "it was not relevant".

In his evidence, Shaw said it had been "failure" that he, as the ground commander, was not informed but called it "an error on the night" rather than a systemic issue.

He said: "The first I knew was when the daytime FIM [force incident manager] called me... and was surprised that I didn't know that there had been a Plato declaration."

The attacks were ultimately not treated as terrorist-related.

When Shaw arrived in Ilkeston Road, a number of officers were already giving first aid to Barnaby and Grace, and Shaw said he turned his attention to the scene, directing other officers on what to do.

The inquiry heard a radio conversation to Ch Insp David Mather, who was the force incident manager and responsible for the operation of the control room at the time.

In the exchange, Shaw said: "We've got some cops looking for the suspect, haven't we, if not many?"

Mather responded "he is going to be long gone now", and told Shaw to focus on the scene in Ilkeston Road.

The inquiry heard there were ongoing searches for a suspect, but they had been directed towards the city centre, while Calocane was moving away from the city.

Shaw told the hearing he had "self-deployed to the scene", which meant he did not have an overarching view of the incident, as he would have done in his role if he had been based at a police station.

Questioned about his decision to be at the scene, he told the inquiry: "Would I have done the same thing again? Yes.

"Were there some negatives to me having done that? Perhaps."

Shaw also said he saw himself as a link between the officers on the ground, Dowson and the control room.

The inquiry also heard how Barnaby and Grace's identities had been established by 05:30, with Grace's university ID found on her person about an hour earlier.

However, the families were not informed of their deaths until hours later.

Dowson said she had told the senior investigating officer, Supt Leigh Sanders, later that day that she believed the force should inform the families "as soon as possible".

She recalled saying "if it was one of my children, I would want to know".

Representing the bereaved families, Tim Moloney KC asked Dowson: "Were you aware that the families were actually ringing in for more information?"

Dowson said she only became aware of a call from "one of the parents" while in a briefing.

She became tearful as she explained how to inform the next of kin was "one of the most difficult decisions" in incidents such as this.

"First and foremost we have to make sure that the next of kin details that we have are absolutely correct," she said.

"And then there's the balance between if the family live in a different force area, you're then relying on a foreign force to go and deliver that message to the families, which is always really, really difficult because you're telling parents the worst news that they're ever going to hear."

PC Matthew Bower, a firearms officer who eventually arrested Calocane, also gave evidence to the inquiry.

He was deployed with a colleague towards the city centre.

The inquiry heard Bower pulled up his unmarked car next to the van Calocane was driving in Bentinck Street, where he had stopped.

"He'd stopped - I don't know why. He was sat in the front holding a knife," he said.

"There was no reason, my consideration was he'd seen the marked car behind him and was possibly waiting for them to approach in order to attack them."

Giving evidence about the moment he arrested Calocane, Bower said: "So as I've exited, I've pulled up next to him initially, seen him with the dagger in his hand.

"I've exited and gone to the rear thinking I'll pass without him seeing me, get the passenger door open. And the van, I think, has lurched backwards."

The officer said he then ran around the front of the van before deploying his Taser.

Bower told the inquiry: "He was very focused. No real emotion on his face."

The inquiry continues.

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