ATTORNEY General Victoria Prentis is reviewing if the sentence for the man who killed Taunton student Barnaby Webber was too lenient.

She has received a referral after Valdo Calocane was last week sent to a secure mental hospital rather than prison for stabbing to death Barnaby, aged 19, and two other people in Nottingham in June of last year.

The Crown Prosecution Service had accepted manslaughter pleas on the grounds of diminished responsibility from Calocane, aged 32, believing it would not secure murder convictions.

Trial judge Mr Justice Turner issued a hospital order for Calocane, who will now be treated in Ashworth Hospital, on Merseyside, for a mental health disorder.

Judge Turner said psychiatric evidence was that Calocane would not have committed the crimes if he was not suffering paranoid schizophrenia but that he knew what he was doing and that it was wrong.

He said Calocane would probably never be released from the hospital, but if ever he was, then he would continue to be supervised in the community by mental health professionals, whereas a release from a prison sentence would leave him unsupervised.

The Attorney General has 28 days from the referral to review the sentencing and decide if it was considered unduly lenient, in which case it would be referred to the Court of Appeal.

At the same time, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) is carrying out a special review of Nottinghamshire Healthcare Foundation NHS Trust to investigate how Calocane was treated for his mental health illness.

The CQC said it hoped to complete its inquiries before the end of March.

Separately, NHS England is to hold an independent mental health homicide (IMHH) review into Calocane's contact with mental health services.

It said the IMHH would take several months to complete.

Calocane had also pleaded guilty to three counts of attempted murder for driving a stolen van into three pedestrians after the stabbings.

Barnaby’s mother Emma Webber said after the trial: “True justice has not been served.”