The Gallantry List should shame our leaders
We should remember the mistakes of authorities as well as the courage of heroes
Artillery Row
By
Fleur Elizabeth Meston
18 October, 2025
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Every name on October's Civilian Gallantry List deserves every ounce of our admiration. I want to focus on four in particular: Grace O'Malley-Kumar, Nathan Newby, Richard Woodcock, and Sergeant Timothy Ansell. Each confronted violence with bravery. They saved the lives of others, and in two heartbreaking cases, gave up their own.
But behind these medals lies a scandal that the King's List ignores. Every atrocity they committed was preventable.
None of the men responsible for these attacks was white British. Two were immigrants; the other two were native-born but with histories of violence, radicalisation, and mental illness that our institutions chose to ignore.
Grace O'Malley-Kumar, her friend Barnaby Webber, and Ian Coates were murdered in Nottingham by Valdo Calocane, a man born in Guinea-Bissau, raised in Portugal, brought to Britain as a teenager, who had repeatedly been arrested, detained under the Mental Health Act, and released despite violent episodes. He should never have been on our streets. Instead, we imported him, indulged him, and failed to control him, and three innocent lives were lost.
On 20 January 2023, at St James's University Hospital, inpatient Nathan Newby noticed Mohammed Farooq, a clinical support worker, behaving suspiciously. Engaging him in conversation, Newby discovered a bomb and weapons. Farooq became radicalised by Islamist ideology, had a grievance against several of his former colleagues and had been conducting a poison pen campaign against them. He had assembled a crude pressure cooker bomb along with knives and an imitation firearm, conducting reconnaissance of potential targets, including RAF Menwith Hill. Farooq brought his explosives into the Leeds hospital, intending to detonate the device and cause mass casualties, particularly in the maternity ward. Newby spent nearly two hours calming Farooq, persuading him to abandon his plan and call the police after Newby's phone died. Even when Farooq brandished a firearm, Newby kept him calm until armed police arrived, averting a potential terrorist attack on the hospital and saving many lives.
Richard Woodcock's killer, Kelvin Igweani, was born in Nigeria. His family repeatedly sought psychiatric help after moving to the UK as his mental health declined, but no meaningful treatment was offered. Igweani violently attacked a woman and her two young children in their flat on 26 June 2021. He had spiralled into delusion, barricaded himself with a child, and butchered the neighbour who tried to save that boy's life. And in Manchester, Sergeant Timothy Ansell faced Jacob Brown, a paranoid schizophrenic who had attacked strangers and prison staff before being returned to the community to do it again. He carried out multiple violent attacks, including stabbing two police officers, assaulting two prison officers while on remand, and attacking one of them on camera during court proceedings. He has only been given an indefinite hospital order, meaning he could be released once deemed "safe."
Four heroes. Four killers. Four stories that expose the cowardice of our institutions, and our inability to defend the public from imported violence and untreated madness alike.
Britain's self-delusional addiction to "non-judgmental" bureaucracy has meant that dangerous foreigners are granted endless chances, Islamist radicals are treated as victims of circumstance until they strike, and dangerously ill people are left to roam the streets. We bury these problems alongside their victims.
Taxpayers will now spend hundreds of thousands of pounds every year to detain men like Calocane in psychiatric facilities, even awarding them benefits while inside. Meanwhile, the civilians they slaughtered or maimed get posthumous medals.
These four names did not need to be on the Civilian Gallantry List
Indeed, the Civilian Gallantry List showcases remarkable tales of bravery and valour. Notably, it does not name the attackers. We do not want to remember them, but as a nation that imports its dangers and then salutes the citizens forced to mop up the blood, we must.
These four names did not need to be on the Civilian Gallantry List. Grace, Nathan, Richard and Timothy should have been saved by our borders and institutions, and leaders whom we trust to protect the people who call this country home. Until then, gallantry will remain Britain's consolation prize for failure.
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