Barnaby Webber

Barnaby Philip John Webber (known as Barney; 2004–2023) was a 19-year-old history student at the University of Nottingham. He came from Taunton in Somerset, Great Britain.

Family: mother Emma Webber (an NHS communications manager), father David Webber, and younger brother Charlie. His family described him as a “beautiful, brilliant, bright young man,” “genuinely warm-hearted,” funny and friendly — someone who “simply liked everybody, and everybody liked him.”

He spent 16 years at Taunton School (from nursery through sixth form). He was a passionate sportsman: an excellent cricketer for Bishops Hull Cricket Club and the university team; he also played hockey and rugby and was a member of the Combined Cadet Force. He was interested in geopolitics (the USA and China) and once dreamed of becoming an RAF pilot. He loved pesto pasta, aeroplanes, and time with friends. His mother said he spoke especially about Grace O’Malley-Kumar and that she meant a great deal to him.

On the night of 13 June 2023, after celebrating the end of first-year exams, he was walking home to student halls on Ilkeston Road with his friend Grace O’Malley-Kumar.

Valdo Calocane attacked from behind with a knife. Grace tried to defend him. Both were killed.
In 2025 the university awarded him a posthumous BA History degree (with honours).

The family set up The Barnaby Webber Foundation, which supports young people facing difficulties in life and grassroots cricket. At his old school a cricket pavilion was named after him. The motto the family often uses: “Be more Barney.”

The attacker, Valdo Calocane

The attacker was Valdo Calocane (then 31–32; some later sources gave his age as 34).
He lived in Nottingham, had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, and had previously come into contact with the police and psychiatric services.
Both victims’ families and later inquiries pointed to systemic failures in mental-health care and law enforcement — he had been hospitalised repeatedly, then released again.

In the early hours of 13 June 2023 he carried out a series of attacks in Nottingham.

First, on Ilkeston Road, he attacked students Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar as they walked home after a night out.

He then killed school caretaker Ian Coates (65) and stole his van. With that van he ran down three pedestrians — Wayne Birkett, Sharon Miller and Marcin Gawronski — inflicting serious, life-changing injuries.

In January 2024 Calocane pleaded guilty to three counts of manslaughter by diminished responsibility and three counts of attempted murder. The court imposed an indefinite hospital order rather than a prison sentence. The families considered this unjust and demanded a public inquiry into why he had been left at liberty.

In short: the attacker was not a random “stranger off the street” without context. He was a man with a known severe mental illness and a history of violence, whom the system had not supervised adequately. That is what the families have been seeking recognition of ever since.