by Katie Lam, The Critic
The Government’s grooming gangs inquiry risks becoming another exercise in evasion rather than truth
On June 13th 2023, Valdo Calocane, a migrant originally from Guinea-Bissau, fatally stabbed three people and injured three others during a psychotic rampage. Calocane had a long history of serious mental illness and instability; he first came to the attention of the authorities when he broke down a neighbour’s door during a schizophrenic episode three years earlier.
So why was he not kept away from the public? Because, according to testimony at the ongoing inquiry into Calocane’s frenzied attacks, mental health workers feared sectioning him, on the grounds that black men are “overrepresented” in mental health facilities.
The fear of being perceived as racist had trumped public safety. The results were predictable, and desperately sad.
Unfortunately, Calocane’s case is not the only example of institutional “anti-racism” leading to very real harm. In January, it was reported that the Met Police had hired candidates who failed background checks, including a serial sex offender accused of raping a child, in an effort to boost diversity within the force – as covered by Policy Exchange’s David Spencer in the latest edition of The Critic.
The most obvious case is perhaps that of the grooming and rape gangs, which operated across dozens of towns, over decades, and abused thousands of children.