The brothers said the vigil was "a whirlwind", but that they appreciated being able to tell the thousands who attended what it meant to them.

The inquiry heard the then Nottinghamshire Police Chief Constable Kate Meynell approached Lee Coates at the vigil to say "I think we need to talk".

Lee said: "I was quite upset with when she was on TV saying 'we are doing everything for the bereaved families'.

"I thought this was quite rude and disingenuous as she'd personally not made any contact with us."

Lee said he and his brothers had not been invited to speak at the vigil at the Council House.

"I think when we got there, it was a bit of whirlwind," he said.

"We were took into the Council House. It was the first time we'd officially met the O'Malley-Kumars and Webbers."

He said it was "very quick handshakes" with families and officials before the vigil started, and they were then told they could speak if they wished.

"We were kind of going with the flow at this stage but at this point, it already felt that we were a bit of an afterthought, let's say," Lee added.

"We all felt it was quite rushed and we didn't have time to really prepare."

Image source, PA Media

Image source, Nottingham City Council

On 16 June, a vigil was held at the Council House in Old Market Square in Nottingham following the attacks.

Lee and James had attended an earlier vigil at the University of Nottingham but at the time, "didn't feel it was appropriate" to introduce themselves to the other bereaved families.

As they left, they spoke to the journalist from Sky, who they had met previously.

James said it was that journalist that informed them about the vigil.

"Everybody had been invited - we had no information or no official word on it," he said.

Family members then contacted the council and it was arranged that Ian's sons could attend.

Lee told the inquiry that on 14 June 2023 - the day after his father Ian was killed - he and his family went to lay flowers at the scene.

They had seen on social media that flowers had already been placed, and decided to go as a family.

"When we arrived, walking up to the scene, there were so many journalists. There was kind of cameras shoved in our face which I didn't really like at all," he said.

Lee said he became angry and asked the journalists for a few minutes, and that a "woman from Sky" helped to move the crowd away.

Only one family liaison officer was appointed for the family that day, Lee Coates said.

He said James was told there were not enough officers for all of the brothers.

"I thought it was quite disrespectful," Lee added.

James said it was difficult not to head to the scene of his dad's killing.

"I remember knowing how hard it was, knowing that he was only around the corner, how hard it is to restrain ourselves to go, even though we know we wouldn't be able to get access," he said.

Lee, however, said he decided to go.

He said: "It was cordoned off. There were two police officers at the end of the road that I approached.

"I think they could see I was crying, and I did say that was my dad.

"It was all starting to feel like a movie. My head was spinning and I just wanted some clarification that it was all true."

The Nottingham Inquiry heard the Coates family had gathered at the house that afternoon, and James said he had been calling around to let people know.

"I didn't want them to find out just by looking at the news," he said.

James said the police made contact "10 minutes before [chief constable] Kate Meynell went on TV to do her press conference to let the city of Nottingham know what had happened".

He said they had pieced together what had happened from social media and the news reporting by then.

Image source, PA Media

Lee said he was also at work that morning, and was receiving messages in a WhatsApp group from colleagues about road closures in Nottingham.

He said he looked at his phone and saw there had been "a few things going off in Nottingham but it was all a bit up in the air".

Lee was feeling unwell that day following a tooth extraction the day before and left work early, the inquiry heard. It was on his way home that he received a call from James.

"He said, 'I think dad is dead'," Lee told the inquiry.

After the call, Lee made his way to James's house.

James Coates told the inquiry he went to work on the day his dad died at the hands of Valdo Calocane.

"I'd become aware of an incident happening in Nottingham earlier that morning with a group chat with work," he said.

"There was an issue with staff getting into the Victoria Centre. There was a big cordon in the city centre that people weren't able to get into the building."

He said he then learned "somebody had been killed on Magdala Road" near to his home.

He said it was not until the afternoon when he learned through a message from a family friend saying: "I can't believe what's happened to your dad."

He said: "My first instinct is that it's a hoax message or she'd been hacked."

James called and said she was "in hysterics" and believed it had been a traffic accident.

He then tried to ring other family members to find out what had happened.

"I couldn't get my head around what had happened," he added.

Two of Ian's three sons, James and Lee Coates, will give evidence next.

James and Lee previously told the BBC they had booked three months off work to be at the inquiry every day, alongside their brother Darren.

Lee previously said: "I'm pinning a lot of hopes on this inquiry, not just for the reasons the inquiry's taking place for, but personally to then be able to start moving forward with my life again."

Image source, PA Media

James added: "It's a lot to take on when we're having to go and do our normal lives, working full-time, come home and then have to sift through email threads, message threads, all this information that's coming through, just to get us prepared for this inquiry.

"We don't want to hide away from information, even how bad it's going to be... we still want to be able to see it and see the whole truth."

Darren previously said: "I'm stuck until, I'm hoping fingers crossed, when this inquiry and the things come out and the truth's told, hopefully as a family, and the other families, we can get some closure to move on in life.

"The public in Nottingham can't feel safe if things like this are going to continue to happen."

The chair of the inquiry, retired senior judge Deborah Taylor KC, asked Elaine Newton about whether things could have been better explained in court, and about the inquiry.

Taylor said: "Because I think we're all in this inquiry using jargon because we're all lawyers.

"Do you think that there's a place for somebody to, as it were, really speak English to you?"

"Yes, I do," Elaine said.

Elaine said in a meeting held before the inquiry, she wanted to ask questions but did not want to feel "daft".

Asked if she felt like a "box to be ticked", Elaine said: "Yes I did."

She said support and information she could access felt "limited", and she did not like the advice she was given by police as a victim of such a serious crime.

Elaine said: "I was not happy in the home at the time, because it didn't feel like a home anymore.

"She was giving me information like 'move house, sell the house, buy a dog, go live by the sea, the walks along the seafront will do you good'."

She said it was "condescending".

Image source, Nottinghamshire Police

Elaine Newton said she wanted police to not rely on the NHS to deal with criminals who had mental health issues.

She told the inquiry: "With the police, I feel that because if they come across people with mental health issues, they should look at the crime first, and find out more from the NHS, what care they're under and things like that, when they are arrested, instead of just passing it on to the NHS.

"After the girl that jumped out of the window, six hours later he was doing another crime.

"They should keep them in custody until they get the full picture of that person. Proper assessment, all the time."

Talking about the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), Elaine Newton said she was sent a letter explaining there had been "unlawful access to records" from within the court service.

"It shouldn't have happened," she said. "But I'm not surprised it happened."

Asked how she felt about the NHS and the police now, Elaine said she felt the same way about the NHS.

"My views of the police have changed because I didn't know the information, and I think the police have let the public and myself and the other families down," she said.

Counsel to the inquiry Rachel Langdale KC asked: "In what way?"

"Because they didn't do their job properly," Elaine said.

"They didn't communicate with the NHS. The NHS didn't communicate with the police. So I think between them - they've caused this between them all."

Following the publication of a major review into Valdo Calocane's NHS care in February 2025 - which found multiple failings - the chief executive of Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust Ifti Majid emailed Elaine Newton to apologise.

In her response, seen by the inquiry, she told Majid: "I want you to understand that I am not interested in apologies because it is too little too late.

"The NHS has disgraced itself with its complete incompetence in caring for the mentally ill, in not following proper procedure in regard to a very high risk individual and complete disregard for public safety which has led to three tragic deaths of which I hold the NHS responsible."

She added her life was "in ruins because of the NHS mismanagement of VC's care", and said she wanted individuals to be held responsible for "catastrophic failings".

Elaine said she had questioned the police about why Calocane, having been in at mental health facility Highbury Hospital (pictured below) several times, had been "let go" when he was not taking his medication.

She said: "They couldn't really answer that question."

Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, the inquiry heard, wrote to Elaine to say that details of Calocane's care could not be released to her as they were confidential to him.

A meeting was arranged to explain the summary of a serious incident investigation into the case with senior executives at the trust, and for Elaine to ask why he had been discharged despite not taking his medication.

Image source, Google

Elaine told the inquiry: "It wasn't a very nice meeting. I was introduced and the first question I asked is, 'is the person who released VC to the public here?'

"They said no, they're not here, I said I would have liked to have spoken to them as I was angry.

"Then they came and said they were very sorry for what happened.

"I said they shouldn't have let him out. They must have said sorry about 10 times. At the meeting I told them I didn't want to hear their sorries any more."

She added she had "lost faith" with the trust.

The inquiry has heard how in a conversation with Mark Kimberley, her family liaison officer, Elaine was worried about Valdo Calocane's upcoming sentencing.

A reminder to readers that Calocane, who was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in 2020, is being referred to as VC throughout the inquiry.

Elaine said: "I was worried that the sentence wasn't, you know, it wasn't murder, it was manslaughter.

"I thought that because it was manslaughter, he would be out in about eight years, five years.

"They said that they couldn't charge him with murder because of his mental health."

Elaine was sent an email from the CPS about the charges put to Calocane, and it was recorded by police that she had conversations about this with the senior investigating officer Leigh Sanders.

She said she had learned "a lot more" from listening to the inquiry and what family members had told her.

"I don't listen to the news because I don't want to see VC's face. I don't watch the news or read the paper," Elaine added.

Talking about Valdo Calocane's prosecution and eventual manslaughter plea on the grounds of diminished responsibility, Elaine Newton said she was not given enough explanation of how it had come about by the police or the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).

"You never understand, because it's rushed," she said.

"Because it's their job, they way they talk about the criminal justice system, they expect you to understand it, and you don't.

"You feel polite enough to say, 'yeah OK', and you just move along."

She said she had attended the sentencing hearing in January 2024 and left through a back door to avoid the press.

Elaine said: "It was a long time just sitting there, and I just needed to get away from it, because it was too much."

She never spoke to the CPS after the sentencing, which saw the victims' families react angrily to Calocane's sentence on the steps of Nottingham Crown Court.

Asked if she was told about previous incidents Valdo Calocane was involved in, Elaine said: "No, I was never told any information about his past."

She said it was only at the point of the public inquiry that she learned of Calocane's history.

She said if she had known sooner, she "wouldn't have thanked [chief constable] Kate Meynell for all the information she gave me and letting me come and visit her".

"I've lost faith in the police and I feel like I'm not really being given the information and I've been lied to, really," she said.

Elaine said she could have been told "down the line" about Calocane's past, but never was.