The younger brother of Valdo Calocane, who killed three people in an attack in Nottingham, said he felt “powerless” over his sibling’s mental ill health and believed violent messages his brother had sent concerned suicidal thoughts.

Valdo Calocane, who was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in 2020, stabbed to death Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar, both 19, and caretaker Ian Coates, 65, on 13 June 2023, and seriously injured three others.

Calocane’s younger brother, Elias, gave evidence to the Nottingham inquiry for the first time on Wednesday, which is looking at the events leading up to the attacks.

During his evidence, Elias was asked about several messages he received from Calocane in 2020, before his first hospital admission, which contained violence and paranoia about technology.

In one message, Calocane said he was “thinking about red rum”, which is murder spelt backwards. In another, Calocane told his brother he wanted to “hurt permanently”.

Elias repeatedly told the inquiry that from 2020 until the attacks in Nottingham in 2023, he had a “belief” Calocane would take his own life.

The inquiry saw messages Calocane had sent Elias where he described “immense anguish, paranoia, anger, hatred” and that he had the “darkest thoughts”.

Elias told the inquiry that he believed an “I love you” message he received from his brother in January 2020 was a “goodbye message”.

The counsel to the inquiry, Rachel Langdale KC, suggested to Elias that the messages sent by Calocane did not explicitly state he was going to hurt himself. He responded: “If you take the messages around it, there’s no other subject other than Valdo, right?

“He’s talking about the situation, the monitoring thing, feeling immense anguish and talking about it being overwhelming.”

He added: “I guess maybe it’s difficult for people to read these [text] messages now without the context of what happened on 13 June and I completely understand that.

“At this point, Valdo had never been violent at all to anyone. He was a very calm and peaceful person as far as I can remember.”

Sophie Cartwright KC, who represents the survivors of the attacks, later suggested Elias was “fully aware” the messages in 2020 referenced “violence and aggression” and was “seeking to downplay” those.

The inquiry heard that between January 2020 and June 2023, Elias saw Calocane twice – once in 2020 and once in 2022. This was partly due to Covid-19 restrictions, Elias said, but he also admitted he “struggled” with his relationship with his brother and did not fully understand his mental health issues.

Pausing to gather his emotions, Elias said: “Part of this was a defence mechanism on my part, of dealing with the loss ahead of time … every time Mum called me, during that period, I thought that was gonna be … I just found it really hard.”

He said he had a “sense of hopelessness” and the feeling he got from services was that “unless something happens, nothing changes” and he said: “I felt powerless.”

The inquiry also heard that Valdo Calocane had called his brother and spoken to him for 44 minutes the day before the Nottingham attacks, and again on the morning after he had killed students Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar.

Calocane told Elias in the latter phone call that it had “been done” and asked his brother to take their parents out of the country.

Cartwright said Elias should have called 999 at this point and “there was an opportunity” as Ian Coates had not been attacked at this point.

Elias said: “I guess I say this over and over again, that I had this long view of him wanting to commit suicide and me thinking that’s what’s happened.”

Elias also said he discovered Calocane had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in October 2023, four months after the Nottingham attacks.

The families of the bereaved shook their heads in disagreement in response.

The inquiry continues.

Additional reporting by PA Media