BBC doesn’t have consent for documentary on Nottingham killings, say families

Loved ones ‘traumatised’ Panorama programme includes interviews with killer Valdo Calocane’s family

The families of the Nottingham knife attack victims have demanded that the BBC tell viewers that a controversial documentary was made without their consent.
The loved ones have said they are “traumatised” at the prospect of a Panorama programme airing on Monday night which is set to include interviews with the family of the killer Valdo Calocane.
The corporation only informed the families of victims Barnaby Webber, Grace O’Malley-Kumar, both 19, and 65-year-old Ian Coates, that the programme was due to come out two weeks ago, “months” after filming started.
The Webber family say they have been given almost no detail as to its contents, nor an opportunity to contribute.
It comes amid an ongoing battle by the families to secure justice after they were left devastated by the decision not to prosecute Calocane, 32, for murder.
Timeline
The paranoid schizophrenic was instead given a hospital order having accepted manslaughter for diminished responsibility.
The BBC said the documentary is in the public interest because of the decline of Colocane’s mental health, asking “whether there were systemic failings and missed opportunities” by health services.
They said they have provided the bereaved families with an “outline of its editorial focus”.
However, a source close to the families said on Sunday that the Panorama programme, titled The Nottingham Attacks: A Search For Answers, had been presented to them as a fait accompli and that their pleas for more information as to its contents had been “rebuffed”.
“We’re aware that the BBC plans to tease out excerpts of the programme all day on their news channels to drum up interest,” the source said. “It’s going to be torment not knowing what it’s going to say.
“The families demand that the BBC includes a disclaimer in the programme stating that it was made without the families’ knowledge or consent.”
The Panorama episode is due to air on the evening before the publication of a review into the handling of Calocane by Nottingham NHS Mental Health Trust.
Before the fatal attack in the early morning of June 13 2023 he had been assessed as psychotic by mental health services but judged to pose a low risk to others.
It is understood that, while members of Calocane’s family did contact mental health services, there is concern among the victims’ families that they could have done more to highlight the danger.
The Panorama programme will air interviews with people who have not previously spoken about the attacks before, the families have been told.
The source said that being forced to wait to find out about the contents of the documentary at the same time as everyone else had caused the families to “lose trust” in the BBC.
Earlier, Emma Webber, mother of Barnaby, told The Sun newspaper: “All the families feel very disappointed and alarmed at the way they have managed this.
“We feel very let down, very disappointed. We expected better. We deserved better.”
Mrs Webber even raised her concerns about the programme with Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, who is understood to have contacted the BBC about their engagement with the families.
A BBC spokesman said: “We have the deepest sympathy for the families, and the Panorama team has been extremely mindful of the sensitivities in handling this programme.
“They have been in contact with the bereaved families to tell them about the programme and to provide an outline of its editorial focus.
“This investigation, which is very much in the public interest, examines the decline in the mental health of Valdo Calocane and asks whether there were systemic failings and missed opportunities in his interactions with mental health services in the three years leading up to the terrible events in Nottingham last year.
“The documentary has been produced in accordance with the BBC’s editorial guidelines.”