The little brother of one of the victims in the Nottingham attacks says the tragedy aged him five years instantly. Charlie Webber was 15 when his brother Barnaby was stabbed to death alongside fellow student Grace O'Malley-Kumar and school caretaker Ian Coates in the early hours of June 13, 2023. Their killer, Valdo Calocane, a 31-year-old diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, had been sectioned four times and had an outstanding arrest warrant before the attacks. He is now under an indefinite hospital order after pleading guilty to three counts of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility and three counts of attempted murder.
Charlie, now 18, told the Sunday Times how he heard about the attack after returning from a school trip in Devon. A teacher told him his parents were on their way to collect him. He immediately sensed something was wrong and suspected it involved Barnaby, a student at Nottingham University. His parents arrived and told him 'there’d been an incident in Nottingham and they thought Barney had passed away.' Charlie recalled: "When I heard those words, it was like my world flipped upside down…I was in year 10, first year of GCSEs, just come back from messing around with my mates on a school trip. Suddenly there were news crews outside our front door ... I aged five years just like that."
“Charlie Webber says he aged five years instantly when told his brother Barnaby was killed in the Nottingham attacks.”
His brother, who he describes as his "hero" and "best friend", was stabbed to death as he walked home after a night out. Since the attacks, Charlie has thrown himself into the Barnaby Webber Foundation, a charity set up to support young people. He has just finished his A-level exams and has been accepted to read history at Cardiff University – the same subject Barnaby was studying. Eventually he wants to do a law conversion.
In September, Charlie will turn 19 – the same age his brother was when he died. "It's a hard thing to wrap your head around," he says. "In my head, Barney is three or four years on, but actually he's frozen at 19." Charlie told how he wants to "be more Barney" and is helping out the foundation ahead of his gap year.