Elias Calocane gives evidence on Valdo Calocane’s 19:09 BST call
Elias Calocane gave evidence to a public inquiry on Wednesday about valdo calocane and the call he received at 19:09 BST on 12 June 2023. The hearing is examining the deaths of Barnaby Webber, Grace O'Malley-Kumar and Ian Coates on 13 June 2023.
He told the inquiry that he heard an announcement for a train to Blackfriars during the call, so he knew his brother was in London. Elias said the conversation was mostly Valdo Calocane trying to persuade him to read zip files sent to their parents over Christmas.
Elias Calocane inquiry evidence
In his witness statement, Elias wrote that Valdo Calocane said, “this will be the last time I will talk to you. After this I will leave you alone”. He told Rachel Langdale KC that he took that to mean his brother would stop bothering him and would want him to listen.
Elias said he was convinced his brother was going to take his own life. He described a sense of hopelessness and said he did not really know what was going on.
Valdo Calocane diagnosis
The inquiry heard that Valdo Calocane was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in 2020. Elias said every time his mother called during that period, he thought it would be something bad.
He also said he tried to persuade Valdo Calocane to engage with services or reason with him, but that was not possible. “So then it's either, we wait for something to happen, or I try to sort of convince VC to engage with services or to try to reason with him,” he said.
Highbury Hospital evidence
Dr Karthik Thangavelu, the killer's consultant during Calocane's final admission to Highbury Hospital, gave evidence first on Wednesday. The inquiry heard that Calocane talked about a “computer brain interface” being used on him on the day of his discharge, and Dr Thangavelu said he did not ask him about hallucinations.
Elias told the inquiry that trying to reason with his brother led to frustration and to “a feeling like none of this can ever be fixed”. That is the question still sitting at the heart of the hearing: how much the family saw, and what the system did with it, before 13 June 2023.
