A young man whose best friend was killed by a paranoid schizophrenic has spoken of his anger that lessons had not been learned before the Nottingham attack that left three people dead.
Michael Callaghan, 27, was permanently disabled and his friend Jacob Billington died when they were both stabbed one night in Birmingham in 2020.
The authorities’ failures in preventing his attack were highlighted as being the same ones that led to the murders of Barnaby Webber, Grace O’Malley Kumar and Ian Coates in Nottingham last year.
In both cases, the attackers were known by professionals to be dangerous and, despite having severe paranoid schizophrenia, they did not contact health services and refused to take medication. However, both killers were free to roam the streets armed with knives, attacking victims at random.
Four years after the attack, Callaghan says she is still “learning to cope with life with a paralyzed arm and identifying as a person with a disability.”
He was stabbed in the neck, causing a stroke that affected his vision, left arm and leg. A scar on his head reveals where surgeons had to remove part of his skull to relieve pressure on his brain.
Callaghan was left with a scar on his head
“It has literally changed every aspect of my life. Everything takes longer now. I have to plan ahead. I can’t work,” he told Sky News.
“All that being said, Jacob no longer being in my life has affected my life in a much more severe and obvious way than any of the disabilities.”
Reacting to a damning report on failures in the management of Nottingham striker Valdo Calocane, Callaghan says lessons have not been learned following a similar report into the care of Zephaniah McLeod, the man who attacked him.
“What the hell is going on for such obvious and preventable things to happen like this? He was a known dangerous person and he was released without any supervision, without medication taken. I don’t know. How can this be allowed?” happen?” he said.
“It is unbelievable that no one responsible for this, no one in any position of authority was appointed or had to justify these decisions.
“Everything was treated as if it was just an unfortunate accident. Not everyone can be unhappy along the way.”
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On average, more than 100 people a year are killed by someone with a mental illness in the UK.
Jacob Billington’s mother, who has campaigned since his son’s death for systemic failures to be highlighted, it is feared that more deaths are inevitable.
Jacob’s mother says lessons were ‘not learned’ from her son’s death
She now believes a full public inquiry is needed to examine why the system allows so many dangerous people to slip through the cracks.
“It’s absolutely worse because you feel like not only have you lost your son in the most horrific circumstances, but the lessons that were supposed to be learned from his death weren’t,” she told Sky News.
“I think sometimes the way these services are funded is almost as if these deaths are collateral damage to a poorly managed and poorly funded system.”
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