Son of Nottingham Attack Victim Learns of Father's Death via Instagram
The son of Ian Coates, a school caretaker fatally stabbed during the Nottingham attacks, revealed at a public inquiry that he discovered his father's death through an Instagram message sent by a family friend.
Valdo Calocane was responsible for the deaths of 65-year-old grandfather Ian Coates, as well as University of Nottingham students Barnaby Webber and Grace O'Malley-Kumar, in the early hours of 13 June 2023.
Two of Ian's three sons, James and Lee Coates, testified that despite numerous calls to the police seeking information, they were not officially informed of their father's death until approximately 17:00 BST, shortly before Nottinghamshire Police publicly announced the incident during a press conference.
James and Lee were the first members of the bereaved families to provide evidence at the Nottingham Inquiry on Tuesday.
The Nottingham Inquiry, chaired by retired senior judge Deborah Taylor KC, is being conducted at Mary Ward House in London. It aims to investigate the circumstances leading up to the attacks and their aftermath.
Calocane initially attacked 19-year-old University of Nottingham students Barnaby Webber and Grace O'Malley-Kumar with a knife at around 04:00 on Ilkeston Road.
He then proceeded to walk nearly two miles across Nottingham, where he fatally stabbed Ian Coates on Magdala Road at 05:14. Subsequently, Calocane took Ian's van and used it to strike Wayne Birkett, Sharon Miller, and Wayne Gawronksi in the city centre.
Police arrived at the Magdala Road scene shortly before 05:40, the inquiry was informed.
As police imposed lockdowns on various parts of the city, James and Lee became aware of unusual activity through separate work-related WhatsApp groups.
James stated that he learned that "somebody had been killed on Magdala Road" near his residence.
However, it was not until the afternoon that James received a message from a family friend on Instagram, which read:
"I can't believe what's happened to your dad."
James initially suspected the message was a hoax or that the sender's account had been hacked.
He called the friend, who was "in hysterics" and believed the incident was a traffic accident.
James then attempted to contact other family members to ascertain details before calling Lee to say:
"I think dad is dead."
As the day progressed, the family gradually pieced together the events.
Lee recounted:
"We were calling 101. We were ringing the helpline. I even went to the lengths of ringing 999 to get some information."
James told the inquiry that police contacted them "10 minutes before [then chief constable] Kate Meynell went on TV to do her press conference, to let the city of Nottingham know what had happened."
On Monday, the inquiry revealed that Ian's body remained at the crime scene for 15 hours.
'We were an afterthought'
The inquiry also heard that Ian's sons only learned about a vigil organized by Nottingham City Council at the Council House in Old Market Square on 16 June through a journalist.
James stated:
"Everybody had been invited - we had no information or no official word on it."
James, Lee, and their older brother Darren were invited to attend after family members contacted the council.
Upon arrival, they discovered they had not been formally invited to speak at the vigil but were told they could do so if they wished.
Lee added:
"We were kind of going with the flow at this stage but at this point, it already felt that we were a bit of an afterthought, let's say."
Lee and James testified that they were not kept informed by police from the time of the attacks through to the sentencing in January 2024 and beyond, even after the force's previous interactions with Calocane came to light.
In his statement, Lee said:
"I do feel strongly we were perceived as second class, in comparison to others. I think I'd already had a bad taste in my mouth from the get-go of the day of 13 June, having to forage for information ourselves, having to contact the police rather than them contacting us."
He added that this "saga had continued."
Earlier, Ian's partner Elaine Newton told the inquiry that police officers initially informed her that Ian had died in a road traffic accident.
She was taken home but received no further information for approximately five hours.
Elaine said:
"I kept asking, I needed to go to Ian, I needed to go and see where he was. I said 'is he at hospital?' [The officer] said 'no'."
When family liaison officer Mark Kimberley arrived with a colleague, Elaine said they "looked shocked" upon learning she had been told her partner died in a road traffic accident.
She recalled them saying:
"Ian's been killed and he's been stabbed."
Elaine added:
"It felt like he'd been killed twice. It wasn't right. The first information I accepted, but the second I couldn't. You don't know which one is true - have they got the wrong person? I felt it was all not right. It was just a mess."
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