by A young man whose best friend was killed by a paranoid schizophrenic expressed his anger that no lessons had been learned from the attack in Nottingham in which three people were killed.
Michael Callaghan, 27, was left permanently disabled and his friend Jacob Billington died when they both stabbed to death during a night out in Birmingham in 2020.
The authorities’ failures to prevent their attack were described as the same ones that led to the Murders of Barnaby Webber, Grace O’Malley Kumar and Ian Coates last year in Nottingham.
In both cases, the attackers were known to be dangerous in professional circles and, despite suffering from severe paranoid schizophrenia, they did not seek medical services and refused to take medication. Nevertheless, both killers roamed the streets armed with knives and attacked victims indiscriminately.
Four years after his attack, Mr Callaghan says he is still “coming to terms with life with a paralysed arm and identifying as a disabled person”.
He was stabbed in the neck, causing a stroke that affected his vision as well as his left arm and leg. A scar on his head shows where surgeons had to remove part of his skull to relieve pressure on his brain.
Michael Callaghan is permanently disabled
Mr Callaghan has a scar on his head
“It has literally changed every single aspect of my life. Everything takes longer now. I have to plan ahead. I can’t work,” he told Sky News.
“That being said, the fact that Jacob is no longer in my life has impacted my life much more profoundly and obviously than any of the disabilities.”
Reaction to a damning report on failures In dealing with Nottingham attacker Valdo Calocane, Callaghan says no lessons have been learned from a similar report into the care of Zephaniah McLeod, the man who attacked him.
“What on earth is going on that such obvious, preventable things are just happening like that? He was known to be a dangerous person and was released without any supervision and without medication. I don’t know. How on earth can they allow this to happen?” he said.
“It is unbelievable that no one who was responsible, no one in any position of authority, was ever named or had to justify these decisions.
“It was all treated as if it was just an unfortunate accident. They couldn’t all have had bad luck along the way.”
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In the United Kingdom, on average over 100 people are killed each year by mentally ill people.
Jacob Billington’s mother, the since the death of her son in action To highlight systemic failures, there are fears that further deaths are inevitable.
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Jacob’s mother says “no lessons have been learned” from her son’s death
She now believes that a full public inquiry is needed to clarify why the system allows so many dangerous people to slip through the net.
“It absolutely makes things worse because you feel not only that you have lost your son in terrible circumstances, but that you have not learned any of the lessons you should have learned from his death,” she told Sky News.
“I think the way these services are funded sometimes suggests that these deaths are collateral damage from a poorly managed and poorly funded system.”
