Grace O’Malley-Kumar, killed in Nottingham attacks, ‘was too good to be true’, say parents

The hand-drawn poster represented everything about her, and all she would later lose. After Grace O’Malley-Kumar (19) was killed in the Nottingham stabbing attacks of 2023, her Dublin mother, Dr Sinead O’Malley-Kumar, found a jigsaw piece-shaped montage Grace had made aged about seven: a poster of who she was.

Its centrepiece was an outline of her little hand, with “½ Irish & ½ Indian” in the neat writing of a conscientious child. There was an Irish Tricolour – Grace was born in England, but she was also a child of Ireland, a proud citizen, even then.

There was a flag of England, birthplace also of her toddler brother James and their father, Dr Sanjoy Kumar. Grace also drew the flag of India, where her father’s parents were born.

She adorned it all with notes on things she loved: art, music, animals, science. Grace was already showing sporting prowess, and drew a hockey stick and cricket ball – years later she’d represent England at hockey and Essex at county cricket.

The poster her mother shows me also included a drawing of a stethoscope and a note saying that, like her parents and grandparents before her, she wanted to become a “docter”.

The cute misspelling was a sign of the young girl’s precious innocence, but also a harbinger of her determination. Grace would have become a doctor if her future had not been taken in a brutal knife attack. The star pupil was a medical student when she died.

Sitting in a London hotel this week after another gruelling day at the public inquiry into the Nottingham attacks, which killed Grace and two others and seriously injured three more, her parents swirl their drinks and smile at memories of their precious girl. Both have Grace’s signature tattooed on their wrists.

Grace had worn Irish rugby jerseys since she was a baby. She sang loudly when she took a shower. She helped her father with DIY. She played cricket in the garden. A popular girl, Grace always fought for her friends, including in the moments before her death.

“What breaks my heart is that the next year, she was going to play hockey for Ireland,” says Sanjoy, the calm of his soft voice belying the pain inside.

“She had already spoken to the Irish coaches,” says Sinead. “She was going to join the Irish under-21s. The coaches had said they were expecting her.”

[ Nottingham stabbings: Victims’ families say doctors and police have ‘blood on their hands’Opens in new window ]

Sanjoy says this would have made her so proud. Grace had always joked she was a “properly mixed-up kid, a blend of British, Irish and Indian. She was beautiful”.

“There was balance in all she did,” says Sinead, her eyes flitting down to the table, then out into the middle distance. Her grief today seems to come in little sighs, but often, she says, it comes in tears. Sometimes grief also comes in anger.

“We used to say to each other that our daughter was too good to be true,” says Sinead.

Everything changed when Grace encountered Valdo Calocane (34) in June 2023 in Nottingham.

A paranoid schizophrenic with a history of violence and run-ins with police, he stabbed her and her friend Barnaby Webber (19) to death in an unprovoked attack as they walked home from a student night out. Grace had just finished her first year of medicine at Nottingham University.

An hour later across the city, Calocane stabbed to death school caretaker Ian Coates (65), stole his van and used it to ram Wayne Birkett, Sharon Miller and Marcin Gawronski at a bus stop in the city centre. They were badly injured.

Initially, Calocane was charged with murder. Five months after the attack he pleaded guilty to manslaughter due to diminished responsibility, sparking fury from victims’ families who thought he would face a murder trial. He received an indefinite hospital order.

His attack was well planned. Later investigations revealed a litany of failures by police, and also doctors treating Calocane. Chances to stop him were missed. When he committed the attacks, there was already a warrant out for his arrest for other incidents.

Two days after the June 13th tragedy, I went to Nottingham for a huge vigil in Old Market Square in the city centre. The crowd was bathed in the golden sunlight of a warm summer’s evening, but shock and sorrow filled the air. People hugged each other and cried.

As well as dignitaries, the victim’s families addressed the crowd. It was almost unbearable to watch a devastated Sanjoy and his tearful wife Sinead clutching their remaining child James, then 16. “We were four and now we are three,” said Sanjoy.

Afterwards, I was one of many hundreds to shake his hand. James collected flowers and laid them out behind. I heard Irish accents nearby: Sinead’s Dublin family, also bereft at the senseless loss, were reading out messages.

Almost three years on, I sit with Grace’s parents at the London hotel. They have just come from the inquiry, ongoing since the end of February. Hearings are due to end in June. They are weary, but not yet spent.

They need to decompress. Sanjoy and I swig bottles of beer while Sinead sips a glass of wine, as they tell me the story of Grace and her place in the centre of their lives.

“She was caring and she always wanted to do medicine,” says Sanjoy. “I don’t even remember discussing it with her. She just presumed it. She took to medicine with no coaxing. We are a very medical family on both sides.”

Sanjoy is a GP in a practice near Chingford, northeast London, not far from the family home close to Woodford Green on the Essex border. He is a former forensic medical examiner for police. He once saved three teenagers who were stabbed in 2009. He was known for accepting violent patients. His mother and brother are also doctors.

Meanwhile, Sinead comes from one of the most eminent medical families in Ireland. She worked as a consultant anaesthetist in the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, although she has been unable to return to her role as a clinician since Grace’s death.

“We all have to deal with our own personal trauma,” she says.

Grace was the eldest of 10 grandchildren for Sinead’s parents. “They were delighted when she decided to become a doctor too.”

Sinead’s sister is an anaesthetist in St James’s Hospital in Dublin. Their mother is a psychiatrist. Their father, Grace’s grandfather, is Prof Kevin O’Malley, a brilliant doctor and pharmacologist who was also registrar/chief executive of the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin. Later, he established RCSI in Bahrain.

Kevin O’Malley’s father was also a doctor. So were his uncles. Another ancestor, Sarah Joyce O’Malley, was the first Irish head of the Association of Anaesthetists in the 1930s.

“Her name was Sarah but they called her Sally,” says Sinead. “God, that’s so long ago.”

Sinead studied at the RCSI in Dublin, where she first met fellow student Sanjoy in her year. She had been to school at the hockey bastion of Alexandra College in Milltown. Sanjoy was also a hockey nut.

“We got together in third year on a hockey tour of Malaysia and Singapore. I was with the men’s team and Sinead was with the ladies team,” says Sanjoy.

“I was actually the captain of the ladies team,” she says, quick as a flash, shooting her husband a facetious half-grin. He grins right back at her, cocks his head and swigs his beer. Sanjoy jokingly admits it was “brave” to take up with the registrar’s daughter at RCSI.

Later they married and moved to his home country of England. Grace was born a few years after that.

Sinead’s parents have a holiday home in Faul, near Clifden in Connemara. While on a visit to Ireland’s west coast, Sanjoy once heard the story of Granuaile (Grace O’Malley), the 16th century pirate queen from Mayo and head of the ancient O’Malley clan.

[ ‘We were four and now we are three’: Irish family of Grace O’Malley-Kumar share grief following Nottingham attackOpens in new window ]

“After I heard that, there was only going to be one name we would call our daughter. She is named after Granuaile.”

James was born three years later. He was always close to his sister.

“Grace would set the bar and then James would jump right over it,” says Sinead.

The children excelled at sports as they grew up. They both played underage hockey for England. They were bright. The family seemed to live a near-perfect, comfortable home life in Woodford Green, regularly visiting Sinead’s family around Rathgar in Dublin.

“Every Christmas of Graces’s life was spent in Ireland apart from during Covid,” says Sinead. “Ireland was very much her second home.”

Sanjoy says she had an “Irish edge” to her humour. Grace and Sinead would wear the green jersey and cheer on Ireland against England in rugby. James and Sanjoy would wear England tops.

“That created a lovely tension in our house on match days,” says Sanjoy, smiling.

Sanjoy coached his children at hockey. Grace was a goalscoring forward and would practise for hours. She played for England at under 16 and under 18.

“When she got her first international cap, it was against Ireland and she scored,” says Sinead. “My parents came over to watch.”

“But the big thing was that she wanted to win that Ireland cap,” says Sanjoy. “She wanted to wear the green jersey for real.”

Grace’s mother says she was a “real leader” of her Irish cousins.

The day after we meet in the hotel, Sinead texts me some reflections from her father, Kevin O’Malley.

One time, the extended family including all the cousins all went out to Clare Island in Clew Bay, from where the pirate queen Grace O’Malley had ruled. Kevin O’Malley held a quiz for the children on the history of their ancient ancestor.

“Such happy days. Such fond memories of Ireland, so integral to Grace’s upbringing,” says her mother.

Later, when Grace reached college age, she visited Dublin with her parents to go to some of their old haunts from their time as RCSI students.

She and her father had a pint in Sheehan’s Pub off Grafton Street. Grace marched out of the bar carrying a pint of Guinness to bring to her mother in their accommodation nearby, so they could all have a pint together.

They also visited the Swan on the corner of Aungier Street, an old RCSI pub. “She wanted to walk where we had walked,” says Sanjoy.

Grace applied to study medicine in Dublin, before eventually accepting a spot in Nottingham as it was the highest ranked medical school in Britain with a good hockey team.

Her path in life was nudging inexorably towards the old East Midlands city, roughly two hours north of London. Grace’s trajectory was also taking her closer to an early, violent death.

While Grace was on her path, Calocane was on his. He was originally from Guinea-Bissau in West Africa. His religious, Christian family moved to Portugal when he was three, then to Britain when he was 16, settling in Wales.

Calocane went to Nottingham University in 2019 as a mature student to study mechanical engineering. His mental health issues began around this time. He broke into neighbours’ apartments. He assaulted flatmates. He was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in 2020 and was sectioned four times over the next two years.

He thought the British government controlled his mind. He assaulted a police officer. He often refused to take antipsychotic medication. One doctor warned Calocane might “kill someone”.

[ ‘Disgusting’ that Nottingham attack victims drug tested but killer was not, inquest hearsOpens in new window ]

Others, an investigation found, were lax about his treatment. Calocane was allowed slip between the cracks, by medical teams and police. It appears he later plotted the Nottingham attacks carefully, buying weapons and bringing changes of clothes.

Grace and Barnaby had been among a group of friends on an end of year night out on June 12th. Earlier that day, Grace had exchanged messages with her mother.

“It was really hot. I told her to put lots of factor on,” says Sinead. “She said: ‘I’ll be out late tonight, I won’t be able to talk to you later.’ She sent me a photo of her holding a sunscreen bottle, and that was the last communication we had.”

Grace and Barnaby ran into Calocane at 4am on the 13th on Ilkeston Road, near The White Horse pub. Barnaby was stabbed first and died quickly. Grace fought to protect him but was stabbed too. She died nearby. Calocane continued on his rampage.

The O’Malley-Kumars heard about an attack on the news next morning. They panicked when they couldn’t reach Grace by phone. They called hospitals, police. They were told nothing. A friend of Grace’s rang to say Barnaby was dead and Grace had been with him.

They drove to Nottingham. They weren’t formally told of their daughter’s death until 2pm, a full 10 hours afterwards. It has since been alleged that police badly handled the operation to stop Calocane that day. Some officers later also inappropriately accessed bodycam footage of the victims.

The O’Malley-Kumars, understandably, aren’t keen to dwell on the pain. But, as I look at them, their stress easily perceptible, it is obvious the pain dwells on them.

I ask about James. He is now as old as his sister was, yet she will always be frozen at 19 in his memories.

“He says he never wanted to be an only child,” says Sanjoy. “That just breaks my heart. It makes me feel bad for not having more children, if I’m honest. It strikes right to the core of you when you hear something like that.”

The O’Malley-Kumar family is angry. At the NHS and police for the way they handled Calocane. At police over the investigation and circumstances around charging. Over how they were treated on the day. Over the way officers handled sensitive images of their daughter. At the Crown Prosecution Service. At complaints bodies.

At every step, they say, they were treated badly as victims by almost every institution.

They are also upset with the Irish Government. Grace was an Irish citizen. She loved this country. They say the Irish State gave them no help when they asked for it while campaigning for an inquiry.

“On two occasions I emailed the Taoiseach’s office when we were campaigning for a statutory public inquiry,” says Sinead. Fine Gael leader Simon Harris, now Tánaiste, was taoiseach at the time. They say they got only a basic acknowledgment in response.

“After that, nothing,” she says. “No help, no advice.”

A spokesman for Harris said this week that the Tánaiste “extends his deepest sympathies to the O’Malley-Kumar family on the loss of Grace. We are following up on this matter”.

It has been announced that Grace is to posthumously receive the George Medal for bravery, one of the highest civilian honours in Britain, for trying to save her friend Barnaby Webber. The formal investiture has been put off until after the inquiry.

Sanjoy says he is “profoundly disappointed” the Irish Government, through its embassy in London, has not been in touch to acknowledge this honour for Grace, a teenage Irish citizen. “I think that is an absolute misfire,” he says.

The Department of Foreign Affairs told The Irish Times Grace’s killing was “awful”. It said the embassy and department have “closely followed this deeply tragic case. This includes Grace’s family’s calls for a public inquiry”.

The department noted the inquiry is now under way.

It also said the George Medal is a tribute to Grace’s “incredible courage” and the embassy “would be open to marking this award to Grace when the time comes,” while noting that the investiture has not yet taken place. The embassy said it is available for “any support possible” for the family.

Sanjoy and Sinead are campaigning for improvements to be made to the wider medical and police system to eliminate “mental health homicide,” killings by those under mental health treatment who may, for example, have stopped taking meds.

“We have got to reduce it to zero. I believe it is absolutely possible,” says Sanjoy.

They also don’t want just boilerplate “lessons learned” from the inquiry.

“Everything is achievable through full accountability. That is what we want,” says Sanjoy.

“Accountability for all the people who just didn’t do their jobs properly,” says Sinead.

“Once you start to hold people properly accountable in this country, that is how you get real system change,” says Sanjoy.

And what about Grace’s grieving parents, bruised and battered by all that has befallen them? When will they rest? Can they ever heal and leave the campaigning behind?

“That is an interesting question,” says Sinead after a short pause. “You have to think what drives you forward and gives you purpose. Doing something in Grace’s name will always give us purpose, don’t you think, Sanjoy?”

He responds that “for whatever days God gives me” he will campaign to improve the system to combat mental health homicide.

“And that is what I am going to do in the name of Grace.”

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