The sentence handed to Nottingham attacks killer Valdo Calocane was not “unduly lenient”, a panel of judges has ruled.
Calocane fatally stabbed students Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar, both 19, and 65-year-old caretaker Ian Coates on June 13 2023.
Calocane was later given an indefinite hospital order after prosecutors accepted a guilty plea to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
At the time the decision was heavily criticised by the families of those killed, who said a murder charge should have stood instead.
The attorney general had asked the Court of Appeal to review the sentence, on the grounds it was “unduly lenient”.
But on Tuesday (May 14) Lady Chief Justice Baroness Carr said there was “no error” in the original sentence given by Mr Justice Turner at Nottingham Crown Court in January.
She said Calocane, 32, was in the “grips of a severe psychotic episode” at the time of the attacks.
Nottingham Crown Court had earlier been told Calocane had a history of severe mental illness including paranoid schizophrenia.
