The killer, who stabbed 19-year-old students Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar and grandfather Ian Coates, 65, physically assaulted the colleagues a month before the horrific attack in June 2023
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Valdo Calocane attacked a married couple he was working with at a warehouse a month before he committed the triple killings in Nottingham, an inquiry has heard.
The killer, who stabbed 19-year-old students Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar and grandfather Ian Coates, 65, physically assaulted the colleagues a month before the horrific attack in June 2023.
Calocane – who attempted to kill three more people during the slayings – was working for logistics company Arvato in Derby when he punched the male colleague in the face.
He also pushed over the female colleague, hurting her leg, a central London inquiry was told.
Another colleague described the incident as "very violent", adding that he saw a Stanley-type knife on the floor after Calocane attacked his colleagues.
Giving evidence on Tuesday, a training coordinator for the company at the time, identified only as Louisa, said of the incident: “We heard a scream from the back of the warehouse.
"I then started to move in that direction.
"The two victims – the wife, she was in front of the husband, the husband was already on the floor. He had already been assaulted.
"As I got into the area I stood myself in front of VC so my back would have been to the victims.
"VC was just stood in front of me, there was no words coming out of VC’s mouth.
"What was different is for the seconds I was stood in front of VC his attention was not on me. He was looking through me and his attention was on the male victim that was on the floor.”
She said she remembered the male victim saying he had been hit to the side of his face, which had triggered an old injury, and that he did not know why he had been attacked.
An email from police was shown asking Louisa to make contact to help the case proceed, but she said on Tuesday: “I was not told by the business that I should be providing information to police, I believed that was being done by the business.”
Another Arvato worker, Volodimir, told the inquiry he saw what appeared to be a Stanley-type knife on the floor after Calocane attacked his colleagues.
“I was dealing with something else in the background and I hear unusual voice and screams, so I went towards the noise and I saw there was a male and female on the floor and VC punching the male in the face,” the witness said.
“So I straight away tell him: ‘Stop, you can’t do this, it’s not allowed,’ and he just go back from the victims and he said someone has pushed him.
“He said: ‘I lost my glasses’, and I noticed a knife was next to him and I kicked the knife out the way.”
He told the inquiry that workers were not allowed to use the type of knife he saw.
Volodimir described the incident as “very violent”, adding: “It was like, eyes pop out, and he was like, ‘don’t touch me, don’t touch me’.”
The operations manager at the time, Matthew, said Calocane "kept looking at the floor and was pacing" immediately after the event, but told the inquiry he could not see anything on the ground.
After being made aware by colleagues that a knife had been spotted and kicked away, Matthew said he mentioned it to police and told officers he thought there was “something not right with (Calocane) mentally”.
Parts of a statement from the male victim were read out in which he said he asked Calocane to wait for him to finish scanning something before he could take it, and that the killer asked him an hour later “why are you talking to me?” before punching him.
The victim described the hit as a "very strong blow" on a "scale of 10" which made him lose his balance before Calocane jumped over some pallets and punched him again, causing him to fall to the ground.
He said he was "extremely scared" and that his wife put herself between him and his attacker who then kicked and pushed her.
The inquiry also heard from Ivan, a cleaner at a hostel in Nottingham called Seely Hirst House, who saw Calocane trying to get into the property on the day of the killings.
The police were not called, the probe was told.
Calocane is detained indefinitely in a high-security hospital after prosecutors accepted his not guilty pleas to murder at his sentencing at Nottingham Crown Court in January 2024.
The inquiry continues on Wednesday.
