This 65-year-old man has admitted to carrying out a hoax call to the police saying he had planted a bomb in a tree in Nottingham’s Old Market Square - ahead of a vigil for the victims of the Nottingham attacks which saw three people brutally stabbed to death. Vivian Mackay claims to have been “delirious and out of control” having taken prescription drugs and drank vast quantities of alcohol when he made the call which his barrister this week told a court “he cannot remember” making on June 15, last year.
The defendant, of Leicester, previously pleaded guilty to carrying out a bomb hoax and was this week due to be sentenced at the city’s crown court. But his case has been adjourned until may so that a psychiatric report can be carried out ahead of a further hearing where a new sentencing date is likely to be set.
Handing Mackay, of Coventry Road, Narborough, bail, Judge Philip Head said to Emma Fielding, his barrister: “Is your client a regular worshipper at his church because he has rather ostentatiously produced a crucifix to me?” Miss Fielding replied: “He does go to church, yes.”
Do you feel safe in the city centre?
The judge said: “The defendant better stay off the bottle and maybe stay off the telephone as well. There is a real risk (for him) that this is quite simply him minimising what he has done and he has an established history of behaving in this manner so do you want to get a doctor to say he was (as the defendant claims) 'delirious and out of his mind’? He has a long-standing diagnosis of anxiety and depression but he was clearly fit to plead because he pleaded.”
Miss Fielding said: “Mr Mackay says that in the case of the bomb hoax he had dislocated his shoulder and had been in hospital and had been given a dose of morphine and co codamol and when he went home he started to drink alcohol which led to him becoming delirious. He says he does not remember the incident or the event.”
Grace O’Malley-Kumar, of Essex, and Barnaby Webber, of Taunton, both 19, and 65-year-old Ian Coates were all killed by parnoid schizophrenic Valdo Calocane in the early hours of June 13, late year.
The teenagers, both University of Nottingham students, were fatally stabbed in Ilkeston Road, Radford as they walked home from a night out with friends at around 4am while Mr Coates was then found stabbed to death in Magdala Road, Mapperley just over an hour later.
Two days later, thousands gathered in the city centre to pay their respects. Old Market Square saw a sea of people who turned up under a white banner on the Council House that read "One City #NottinghamTogether".
The families of all three victims addressed the crowd. They were joined by civic and faith leaders, including council leader David Mellen, who told families at the vigil: "The attack on you is an attack on us all."
In January, 32-year-old Calocane was handed a hospital order in January and was told he is likely to spend the rest of his life in a secure unit for the brutal slayings.
After stabbing to death his three victims, Calocane, who graduated from the University of Nottingham with a degree in Mechanical Engineering in 2022, drove a van he had stolen from Mr Coates in Mapperley and deliberately mowed down innocent victims Wayne Birkett, Sharon Miller and Marcin Gawronski in the city centre.
The defendant, who had lived at addresses in both Burford Road, Forest Fields, and Derwent Way, in the city centre, previously pleaded guilty to three counts of manslaughter and three counts of attempted murder.
Since the sentence, the families have called for a public inquiry - strongly criticising the police, mental health services and the Crown Prosecution Service and Calocane's sentence will be reviewed after the attorney general said it was too lenient.
Mackay will next appear at Leicester Crown Court again on May 10.
