Police dismissed notebooks belonging to Nottingham triple killer Valdo Calocane, which included lists of explosives, as having little significance, it has emerged.
The pads and a sketchbook seized from Calocane also contained what have been described as “deeply misogynistic” writings and references to the Manchester Arena bombing, but Nottinghamshire Police officers did not treat them as being of “evidential value” and their existence remained undisclosed for three years.
The material was found in a holdall at Calocane’s home shortly after he murdered three people in Nottingham. Investigators also discovered references to “mea culpa”, claims about being able to “resurrect” people, and another passage in which he referred to himself as God.
Among the contents were lists naming explosives including TATP, the substance used in the Manchester Arena attack, the November 2015 Paris attacks and the March 2016 Brussels bombing carried out by Islamic State extremists.
The notebooks were only uncovered by the bereaved families’ lawyers in June, after they spotted a reference to them in a police statement.
It was revealed today that the documents were finally handed to the public inquiry into the Nottingham stabbings in June — three years after students Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar, both 19, and school caretaker Ian Coates, 65, were stabbed to death by Calocane, who has paranoid schizophrenia.
Responding to the disclosure, Dr Sanjoy Kumar, the father of Miss O’Malley-Kumar, said: “Since we lost Grace, it has been one shock after another, one failing after another.
“I cannot get my head around how much has been kept from us, even the last day of summation.
‘We’ve got people telling us that Valdo Calocane was planning to possibly bomb Nottingham. He was looking at venues and he was looking at pipe bombs.’
New CCTV of Calocane attacking a warehouse colleague has also emerged – three years on. The inquiry heard it was not disclosed until after the evidence had finished
The inquiry into the attacks has highlighted a string of significant failures by police who failed to arrest him despite him being wanted for previous attacks and mental health services who released him back into the community.
It started hearing evidence in February, with more than 100 witnesses questioned over three months to May.
On Tuesday, ahead of what were supposed to be closing submissions from the core participants, Her Honour Deborah Taylor, chair of the inquiry, revealed new information had come to light.
She expressed her frustration at the late disclosure of the notebooks and ordered any more information to be handed over by the end of the year at the very latest.
‘It is disappointing that over the break since we were last here, some evidence has emerged which ought to have been identified by core participants and disclosed earlier,’ she said.
Rachel Langdale KC, counsel for the inquiry, said the notebooks were found within a holdall at a property in Nottingham where Calocane had lived until a day before the killings, when he was evicted for non-payment of rent.
She said that in a recent statement, retired Detective Superintendent Leigh Sanders, said ‘detailed examination’ of the holdall was ‘not prioritised in June 2023 because investigative efforts were focused on recovering the Slazenger bag he [Calocane] had with him on the evening of the attacks’.
It remained ‘unchecked’ until September 2023.
Ms Langdale said: ‘You may consider chair that the searching of or for bags was not mutually exclusive and both should have been shortly after 13th June 2023?’
‘When they were checked the contents of the holdall including further notebooks belonging to Valdo Calocane were not considered to be of evidential value to the homicide investigation.
‘They were not therefore seen by Detective Sanders nor were they provided to the CPS [Crown Prosecution Service] for consideration by the psychiatric experts,’ she said.
The notebooks were also not disclosed to the inquiry.
Ms Langdale said it would be ‘clear to everyone that the inquiry would be interested in this material’.
She said it was an ‘oversight by Nottinghamshire police’ only corrected after counsel for the bereaved noticed a reference in a police statement to a sketchbook and two notebooks.
The inquiry heard the bag contained two Pukka pads, an A4 Oxford pad and a sketchbook. They included maths and physics equations as well as pages of line drawings. But also references to AI mind control and detailed references to police and criminal evidence rules.
He wrote bullet points on one page about explosives under the heading ‘thoughts’, including TNT and nitrate fertiliser.
Ms Langdale said: ‘This piece of paper listing thoughts about a number of explosives was not identified or taken into account at the time.’
She added that it had not been made available by police to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) or to psychiatric experts.
Incredibly, a phone was also found in the bag which was also not flagged until July 2026. When it was finally turned on it was found to be a new device with nothing on.
Calocane, who admitted manslaughter and attempted murder, was detained indefinitely in a high-security hospital instead of prison in January 2024 after prosecutors accepted his not guilty pleas to murder on the grounds of diminished responsibility – to the anger of the victims’ families who had been told he would be sent to prison.
In his closing speech, Tim Moloney KC, who represents the bereaved families, questioned whether had experts known about his notes about explosives and unsettling research on mass tragedies, they may have come to a different conclusion and he might have received a different sentence.
He said Calocane had also searched Rwanda, Manchester Arena, and Iraq and made web bookmarks for Albert Hall conference centre and the Theatre Royal in Nottingham. Mr Moloney said it ‘might have been worth asking him about’.
He said: ‘No one has ever asked [Calocane] why he was researching explosives and large venues because they couldn’t,’ adding that police had failed to share this important information.
Mr Moloney said it was a ‘significant failure’ that psychiatrist Professor Nigel Blackwood, who assessed the killer before his sentencing, was not shown videos of Calocane’s previous violent behaviour, including an assault on a police officer.
The inquiry also heard that further violent assaults by Calocane on colleagues at warehouses were not disclosed to the inquiry team until after the evidence had finished.
Footage of an attack in February 2023, where Calocane can be seen punching a colleague, was shown to the inquiry for the first time on Tuesday.
Mr Moloney said: ‘The footage of this was uncovered by the inquiry, not Nottinghamshire Police. Needless to say… neither Professor Blackwood nor any of the forensic psychiatrists nor, crucially, the sentencing judge have seen it.’
Radd Seiger, the families’ spokesman, said: ‘It is utterly disgraceful that these notebooks have only now come to light, years after the Nottingham attacks and as this public inquiry reaches its closing stages. They are highly relevant to the criminal case.
‘Thank goodness for the inquiry. It has the power to compel disclosure and shine a light into places that might otherwise not have seen the light of day. These revelations show exactly why public inquiries matter.
‘But if these notebooks could have shed a different light on Calocane’s culpability, the question is unavoidable. Why on earth were they not disclosed before? What was going on?’
Nottinghamshire police declined to answer questions about the notebooks. A spokesman said: ‘We remain fully committed to supporting the Inquiry and will fully consider any recommendations that are made when it concludes.’
