A grieving mother told a central London public inquiry she will never forgive the police officers who shared graphic, mocking WhatsApp messages about the murder of her son. The emotional testimony exposed a deepening crisis of institutional trust surrounding the handling of Valdo Calocane, the man who killed three people in a horrific 2023 rampage.
Emma Webber, the mother of 19-year-old victim Barnaby Webber, delivered a searing condemnation of the Nottinghamshire Police at the hearing. She revealed that officers accessed street footage of the attacks and circulated “disgusting and grotesque” messages describing the victims as being “properly butchered” with their “innards out.”
The ongoing 2026 inquiry, chaired by retired senior judge Deborah Taylor KC, is investigating a massive chain of state failures. Calocane, diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, stabbed Webber and fellow university student Grace O’Malley-Kumar to death. He then killed 65-year-old school caretaker Ian Coates and used his stolen van to run down three pedestrians.
Webber drew a sharp distinction between the grim coping mechanisms often used by emergency workers and the behavior of the officers involved in this case. She told the inquiry that while first responders sometimes rely on gallows humor, the needless voyeurism of her son lying in the road crossed a clear and destructive line.
The WhatsApp scandal is a fraction of the broader operational collapse currently under scrutiny. Evidence confirmed an arrest warrant for Calocane had been issued 10 months before the killings after he assaulted an emergency worker. Police ignored it. Authorities now officially classify the omission as a serious, systemic, operational failure.
The internal fallout continues to impact the broader world of British policing and public accountability. Nottinghamshire Police previously referred itself to the Independent Office for Police Conduct over the text exchanges. The disciplinary action resulted in a final written warning for one officer who shared the graphic details outside the force. Another received management reprimands.