The father of massacred Nottingham student Barnaby Webber watched in horror on a tracking app as his son’s phone moved – to a police station.

David Webber had heard a man and woman had been killed but he could not reach Barnaby, and when he phoned police, they refused to speak to him.

Panicking that something was wrong, Mr Webber told the public inquiry into the Nottingham attacks how dread set in as he and the 19-year-old’s mother Emma followed his location on the Find My Phone app.

Speaking about the morning of June 13, 2023, he said: ‘We were getting up in the morning. Emma had to work, I had to work. I turned the TV on, and saw the media “light up” [with news of the killings].

‘My first instinct was to message Barney to see if he was OK. I messaged him and got no response, so I thought I’ll phone him. I phoned; still got no response, which was quite unusual because Barney would normally answer the phone.’

Mr Webber said he checked Find My Phone to see where he was, and could see his son was on Ilkeston Road close to his student accommodation.

He said: ‘I phoned the police, and said who I was, and I said who my son was, and I remember a distinct change in tone from the lady I was speaking to.’

The father said police told him it was a ‘fast-changing scene’ and ‘there was no one that could speak’ to him, but someone would call him back.

Barnaby Webber, 19, was stabbed to death but police were unable to tell his father anything at first - leading David Webber to use the Find My Phone app to make a horrifying discovery
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Barnaby Webber, 19, was stabbed to death but police were unable to tell his father anything at first – leading David Webber to use the Find My Phone app to make a horrifying discovery

Emma Webber (C), David Webber (R), parents of student Barnaby Webber, arrive at Mary Ward House in central London for the Nottingham Attack Inquiry
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Emma Webber (C), David Webber (R), parents of student Barnaby Webber, arrive at Mary Ward House in central London for the Nottingham Attack Inquiry

Grace O'Malley-Kumar was also just 19 when she was killed alongside her friend Barnaby Webber
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Grace O’Malley-Kumar was also just 19 when she was killed alongside her friend Barnaby Webber

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Then he saw on the tracking app that his son’s phone was starting to move. To the parents’ horror, they ‘watched it go all the way to Radford Road police station’, which is when they ‘panicked’. Mr Webber said: ‘I said “we’ve got to go now”, just said “something is wrong”.’

Barnaby and fellow student Grace O’Malley-Kumar, both 19, were walking home in the early hours when they were stabbed to death by paranoid schizophrenic Valdo Calocane, 34, who went on to kill caretaker Ian Coates, 65.

Calocane, who had a history of violence and mentally ill behaviour, was released by medics who decided against sectioning him amid concerns there were ‘too many black men in custody’.

Mrs Webber told the inquiry: ‘We’re spending far too much time worrying about discrimination and segregation and doing the wrong thing because somebody’s of a certain colour or certain religion. If you’re dangerous, you’re dangerous, and it does not matter what colour you are or where you’re from.’

She also condemned police officers who accessed footage from the attacks and discussed it on WhatsApp. She said: ‘Reading the content of that WhatsApp message, it was so destructive, so destroying, so awful.

‘The author of that message chose to refer to our children as being “properly butchered” and “innards out” and everything. That’s disgusting and grotesque.’

Mrs Webber told the inquiry: ‘We're spending far too much time worrying about discrimination and segregation and doing the wrong thing because somebody's of a certain colour or certain religion. If you're dangerous, you're dangerous'.
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Mrs Webber told the inquiry: ‘We’re spending far too much time worrying about discrimination and segregation and doing the wrong thing because somebody’s of a certain colour or certain religion. If you’re dangerous, you’re dangerous’.

The inquiry is investigating how Valdo Calocane, 34, was allowed to carry out the three killings despite his history of violence
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The inquiry is investigating how Valdo Calocane, 34, was allowed to carry out the three killings despite his history of violence

The third victim Ian Coates, whose partner was initially told by police that the caretaker had died in a car crash
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The third victim Ian Coates, whose partner was initially told by police that the caretaker had died in a car crash

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Meanwhile Sinead O’Malley-Kumar told the inquiry she and her husband had repeatedly tried to phone their daughter after seeing in the news that a man and woman had died.

The first-year medical student’s father, Sanjoy Kumar, said: ‘She knew when daddy called, it was only for something really quite important, otherwise daddy doesn’t call. I rang her phone at least eight times, and there was no answer.’

Calocane was sentenced to an indefinite hospital order in January 2024 after admitting manslaughter by diminished responsibility and three counts of attempted murder – after prosecutors dropped murder charges to the disgust of the victims’ families.

Inquiry chairwoman Deborah Taylor, a senior retired judge sitting in London, has said the probe will ‘examine what could and should have been done, and the effects of key actions, omissions and decisions’.

The inquiry continues.