Son of Nottingham attacks victim found it hard to keep track in courtpublished at 12:55 GMT
James Coates said the court outcome was not explained on the day of Valdo Calocane’s sentencing to a hospital order, in January 2024.
He said: “The judge started giving out all these words that I wasn’t familiar with, and then everyone just seemed to stand up and start walking away.
“I turned to the FLO [family liaison officer] and was like, ‘what’s going on?’ She was like ‘we’re finished. He’s being sent to hospital’.”
He wanted the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to explain the sentence, but they had left and were not able to meet him.
Letters were later sent to the family summarising medical evidence and explaining the outcome from the CPS, while other correspondence came in from the policing watchdog, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), Nottinghamshire Police and more.
James said: “At this point I was working full-time, I’d only taken three weeks off for bereavement and felt under pressure to go back to work.
“I was the point of call for the family and I was trying to organise getting married, and then obviously going through the sentencing as well, a lot of it was going through one ear and out the other, especially when it came to things I didn’t understand, like the courts or police.”
