Mother of Nottingham attack victim’s scathing letter to police

The mother of Barnaby Webber, one of the three people killed in the Nottingham stabbing attacks last year, has penned an open letter to the police officers who made inappropriate comments about the victims in a WhatsApp group.

The letter is in response to WhatsApp messages from the officers’ group chat that have surfaced, revealing that one officer said two teenagers had been “proper butchered”. 

Valdo Calocane, a paranoid schizophrenic, murdered Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar, both 19, and Ian Coates, 65, in a random attack in Nottingham city centre on 13 June last year.

In a move that she hoped would make a difference to the way police speak about victims, Emma Webber, Barnaby’s mother, wrote a public letter in The Times. This was after Kate Meynell, the chief constable of Nottinghamshire Police, whose son was on the WhatsApp group, reportedly refused to give Webber’s private letter to the officers. 

In her letter, she wrote: “I know you are police officers, but you are also human beings, and very likely that a number of you are parents as well. Given this, the callous, degrading and desensitised manner of your comments has caused more trauma than you can imagine.”

“When you say ‘a couple of students have been proper butchered’ did you stop to think about the absolute terror that they felt in the moment when they were ambushed and repeatedly stabbed by a man who had planned his attack and lay waiting in the shadows for them?”

Webber made clear that she did not want to publicise the names of the officers: “My aim is not to cause undue shame, or to have anyone publicly vilified; there’s no need to add yet more pain; I just hope that by reaching out to educate and explain, my voice might make a difference.”

The Times also revealed that Nottinghamshire Police has been sacking officers and holding disciplinary hearings in private. The families of the victims have not been informed of the internal processes. 

This example of misconduct is the latest in a long line of scandals that have led the nation to question the culture within police forces. This has been particularly notable in the Metropolitan Police. Last February, a tribunal heard that officers in a WhatsApp group had sent messages that praised a rapist and made offensive remarks about the Holocaust. Two serving officers – and six former colleagues – were found guilty of gross misconduct. 

The subsequent investigations into Wayne Couzens and the officers around him after he murdered Sarah Everard in March 2021 also revealed a culture of misogyny, racism and violence. Not only did Wayne Couzens have a reputation for previous complaints about his behaviour towards women, but again, on WhatsApp groups he was part of, police officers joked about rape and sexual violence against women. 

As of September last year, around 1,000 Met officers were suspended or on restricted duties and 450 were being investigated on historic allegations of sexual or domestic violence. Due to the number of gross misconduct hearings, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Stuart Cundy said that up to 60 officers a month could face the sack over the next two years. 

Emma Webber told BBC Radio 5 today that “when you lose your humanity and your respect for life, I don’t think you should be working in those services”. After too many police failures and examples of an abhorrent culture, the nation will be thinking the same thing. 

Write to us with your comments to be considered for publication at letters@reaction.life