Nottingham attacks family condemn police promotion

The families of three students killed in the Nottingham attacks have condemned Nottinghamshire Police’s decision to promote the officer who led the investigation into the 2023 stabbings.

A promotion that has reignited grief

Rob Griffin was appointed substantively as deputy chief constable of Nottinghamshire Police following a selection process concluded on 13 August 2026. He had served as temporary deputy chief constable since 29 April 2025, but the confirmation of his role has drawn sharp criticism from the families of Grace O’Malley-Kumar, Barnaby Webber and Ian Coates, who were stabbed to death by Valdo Calocane on 13 June 2023.

Sanjoy Kumar, Grace’s father, told the BBC that the promotion was “completely wrong”. He said Griffin had a “long history” with the Nottingham Inquiry and that he had initially attempted to issue a statement suggesting Nottinghamshire Police could do no more to prevent the attacks — a position he later acknowledged was untrue during the inquiry itself.

Questions about candour and integrity

The families have argued that someone appointed to a senior role should demonstrate “candour and integrity”, and that those standards were not met in this case. Mr Kumar told the BBC that the force had not informed the families about ongoing professional standards investigations relating to Griffin, and he questioned what was happening within the policing leadership. He added that the message sent by the promotion was that “this government does nothing but reward failure”.

Griffin had previously been described by Barnaby Webber’s mother, Emma Webber, as having “blood on his hands”, following the force’s failure to detain Calocane despite an arrest warrant being issued in September 2022. Calocane had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in 2020 but was not apprehended until after the attacks took place.

What the force says

Nottinghamshire Police said the selection process took place between 6 July 2026, when the position was advertised, and 13 August 2026, when it was completed. The force said the process involved an application form, a people panel with representatives from support networks, staff associations, and external stakeholders including Independent Advisory Groups and the Youth Commission, plus an executive interview with two independent panel members.

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The appointment comes against the backdrop of the ongoing public inquiry into the Nottingham attacks, which has examined how Calocane was able to carry out the killings despite prior contact with mental health services and the police. The inquiry has heard evidence about failures across multiple agencies, including the police force itself.

Why it matters

This story matters because it touches on accountability in policing at a time when public trust in the force’s handling of violent crime remains fragile. The promotion of an officer directly linked — in the public inquiry and in the eyes of the victims’ families — to the failures that allowed a triple murder to occur raises difficult questions about how forces assess suitability for senior roles. It also signals to other bereaved families how complaints and Fitness to Promote processes are handled.

The families’ intervention has reopened a wound that the inquiry was intended to help close. Their call for the policing minister and the secretary of state responsible for policing to explain the appointment suggests the dispute is unlikely to disappear.

What happens next

The families have said they want answers from government ministers about the standard of scrutiny applied to the appointment. Whether the promotion holds or is revisited will depend in part on the outcome of any internal or external review and on whether the families pursue a formal challenge. In the meantime, the public inquiry continues its work, and further testimony about the decisions taken — or not taken — before June 2023 is expected to emerge.

Source: BBC News