Police officer sent WhatsApp message saying Notts attack victims were ‘properly butchered’

Police officers sent graphic messages in a WhatsApp chat saying the victims of the Nottingham attacks last year had been “properly butchered”.

Grace O’Malley-Kumar, Barnaby Webber and Ian Coates were stabbed to death in the street on 13th June 2023 by paranoid schizophrenic and former Nottingham student Valdo Calocane.

A police officer who attended the scene where University of Nottingham students Grace and Barney had been attacked later sent a message in a group chat with his colleagues describing how police had “tried to hold their inners in,” Sky News reveals.

He said: “So two students on Ilkeston road have been proper butchered, four section [officers] turned up and tried to hold their inners in.

“Suspects then made off and attacked a man in a car on magdala [road] and stabbed him to death.”

Another officer in the chat then forwarded the message out of the group chat and shared it with his wife and two friends.

The families of the three victims learnt of the contents of the WhatsApp messages in February of this year but felt too disturbed to share the “disgusting” messages with the public until now.

Dr Sanjay Kumar, Grace’s father asked: “Would anyone with a child, a mother, a relative use words like that?”

“Why have police in Nottinghamshire forgotten that these are our dear and beloved children they are referring to? I have tears in my eyes every time the message echoes in my head.

“The message is as barbaric as the crime for me.”

The officer who wrote the message did not face a misconduct hearing but received “management intervention” whilst the officer who forwarded the message to people outside the force was found guilty of gross misconduct.

Deputy Chief Constable Steve Cooper previously told Sky News that the force took “immediate” action over the WhatsApp message.

He said: “Some of the words were crude and distasteful. It was a single message and no images were taken or shared.”

This comes after a Nottinghamshire Special Constable was fired and banned from working as a police offer again after it was found he had watched bodycam footage of the Nottingham attacks victims being treated by medics in the street.

Featured images via Shutterstock. 

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