Police said it was a “terrible error” to wrongly tell the partner of a Nottingham attack victim who was stabbed to death that he died in a crash.
Elaine Newton told a public inquiry into the triple killings earlier this week that it felt like her partner Ian Coates, 65, had been “killed twice” after she was initially told the incorrect cause of his death.
Giving evidence on Thursday, Claire Gould, a family liaison adviser from Nottinghamshire Police, said the mistake “never should have happened” but added she was unsure how it came about.
Mr Coates, a school caretaker, was knifed to death by Valdo Calocane just over an hour after he killed 19-year-old students Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar in the city in the early hours of 13 June 2023.
Ms Newton said she was initially told by officers that he died in a “road traffic collision” before officers corrected their mistake four hours later.
The inquiry was shown an email from PC India Proud, who relayed the information that Mr Coates had died in a road traffic collision (RTC) and spent time with Ms Newton on the morning of 13 June. She said it had felt “torturous” not to be able to give Ms Newton more details about how her partner died.
She wrote: “At the initial point when I arrived [at her home], I was unsure whether Mr Coates was a victim of a road traffic collision or a victim of one of the stabbings as no names were given on the radio and so I believed the control room to be passing me the correct information, as they believed him to be the victim of an RTC.”
Asked by counsel to the inquiry, Julian Blake, what had gone wrong, Ms Gould said she had not seen the email before.
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She said: “Quite clearly, there has been a terrible error and the family should not have been given the wrong info as to Mr Coates’s cause of death.
“It’s not entirely clear where that miscommunication happened, but to be clear, that never should have happened.”
Ms Gould added: “I think it’s quite clear the officer feels awful about what happened, but it doesn’t take away the impact it had on Elaine and her family, and it is important police officers are trained to understand the impact death messages have, and it’s absolutely crucial we make every endeavour to pass the correct information.”
She also apologised for the delay in informing Mr Coates’s three sons that their father had died.
“I have always been aware of the impact that delay had on them and for that I am wholeheartedly sorry for the impact it had,” Ms Gould said.
“In terms of the delay in them being told…I believe as a result of me not knowing they were the sons of Ian, and when I was informed he had sons, I tasked the liaison officers to find information about them but there was still too long of a delay, which I take responsibility for.”
During Thursday’s hearing, Ms Gould also became emotional as she recalled making the decision to phone Barnaby Webber’s father, David, and tell him his son had died.
The inquiry was told that contact details for Mr Webber’s parents were known at 4.22am, but they had still not been informed by 10.15am.
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Ms Gould said she was told David Webber had phoned the force’s casualty bureau at 9.55am, saying he was concerned about his son as he had tracked his mobile phone to a police station.
She said: “I considered what I thought to be the best way to tell the family, and I realised there was only one option at this point.
“He was clearly sufficiently concerned, and I realised we couldn’t delay any further.”
Calocane, now 34, was handed an indefinite hospital order after pleading guilty to three counts of manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility on 2024.
The inquiry continues.
