When a child is killed through senseless violence, the grief of their families is a sorrow shaped not only by loss, but by the knowledge that the death should never have happened. This terrible truth was etched on the faces of Henry Nowak’s family as they walked out of court last week to stand in front of a barrage of television news cameras, having just seen their son’s murderer sentenced to life.
Henry, 18, was killed by 23-year-old Vickrum Digwa in Southampton last December as he made his way back from a Christmas party. Digwa, a British Sikh man, repeatedly stabbed his victim with a 21cm dagger. From the very start, he misled police, telling them he had suffered a racially aggravated assault. That was a lie. In his sentencing remarks, Judge William Mousely said: “I am sure that Henry had said nothing racist. You [Digwa] are the only person to make that claim and it is completely at odds with his previous character.”
Outside the court, Mark Nowak, Henry’s father, showed courage and grace as he made a 12-minute-long statement. In the media white noise that followed, much of it was lost. He described his son as the victim of the “brutal reality of knife crime in this country”. He said the Nowaks held Digwa solely to blame. He thanked the police team that had investigated Henry’s murder and brought Digwa to justice. He went on to raise important questions including: would the Independent Office of Police Conduct thoroughly investigate what went wrong without fear or favour? Why wasn’t the government treating knife crime as the “national emergency that it is”?
The police body-worn camera footage that was released at the family’s request is horrifying: a weak and desperate Henry lies on the ground, telling officers he has been stabbed. Instead of helping him, an officer casually brushes off his pleas with the words: “I don’t think you have, mate.”
Mark Nowak showed compassion and foresight when he said: “We do not want Henry’s death to be used for further division, hatred or tension.” While every right-thinking person understood this as a request for peace, truth and positive action to end knife crime, Nigel Farage heard an excuse to open his factory of lies.
The next morning, Farage published what he called a video “emergency address”, a string of unrelated anti-immigration dog-whistles designed to appeal to his racist base as well as a mainstream media hungry for headlines. Within hours, Farage’s biggest falsehood – that police forces are, in effect, institutionally racist against white people – had been seized upon by mainstream media outlets as though it were fact. Hours of studio discussions, front pages and column inches followed. The desires and wishes of the Nowaks had been cast aside. This is the process by which propaganda is rationalised and lies are legitimised.
By the end of the evening, far-right activist Tommy Robinson was busy stirring the pot in Southampton. Surrounded by his street thugs, he wrongly blamed Muslim immigrants for Henry’s death (he later retracted this claim). This group – many of whom were holding up anti-immigration placards – were described by mainstream news outlets as simply “protesters”. Within hours, some of the crowd had attacked and seriously injured 11 police officers.
Let me be clear: Henry Nowak’s treatment by the police on the night he died was unforgivable. Lying incapacitated on the ground, he posed no threat to the attending officers. He should not have been handcuffed. He should have been thoroughly checked for injuries. He wasn’t. The question is: why?
The former and current police officers I’ve spoken to say it is too early to determine exactly what went wrong that night – and a sound investigation conducted by the IOPC without political interference is the best way to establish the facts. What they agree about is this: the so-called “evidence” presented by Farage and his sidekick, Reform UK chair Zia Yusuf, of institutional “two-tier” policing is wildly inaccurate. Theirs is, of course, just a snapshot of opinion within constabularies, but it is largely borne out by the facts as we currently know them.
Farage and Yusuf have repeatedly pointed to a document created by the National Police Chiefs Council as proof that Henry Nowak died as a direct and sole result of “anti-white” policing. The paragraphs are contained in the “Police Anti-Racism Commitment”, which was drawn up as part of the Police Race Action Plan. The key sections read: “Our commitment to racial equity means producing equality of policing outcomes for people from different ethnic groups”, and, separately, “it does not mean treating everyone the same or being colour blind (racial equality)”.
It is crucial to note that these paragraphs are not a formal law or operational order; they constitute a short values statement setting out the NPCC’s intended direction of policing. They are also vaguely written and, when presented to the public in various news reports, entirely devoid of context.
A protest over the death of Henry Nowak, Portswood police station, Southampton, 7 June 2026. Photo: Finnbarr Webster / Getty
The guidance was adopted in 2019 after the killing of a black man, George Floyd, during an arrest in the US. That kicked off a global movement and restarted the debate around longstanding concerns with regard to bias and racial disparities in policing over here.
The examples of such disparities are well-known and numerous. One example is evidenced in the government’s own figures, which show black people are more than twice as likely to be arrested as white people. That indicates that they are not only more likely to be stopped but also more likely to progress to serious police action. The issue here is the alleged disproportionate treatment, sometimes called “overpolicing”, of black communities.
In his video, Farage also claimed that the police are told they must respond to crimes differently based on the ethnicity of a victim. This assertion also fails to stand up to scrutiny – not least because any explicit instruction to treat victims differently based on race would almost certainly be unlawful under the Equalities Act 2010. Police training does, however, ensure officers are aware of barriers – including historical distrust within some communities – which may prevent victims from engaging with officers.
That distrust is, again, well reported and is rooted in experiences that have been investigated and verified by two official reports: the Macpherson inquiry in 1999, which was published after the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence; and the Casey review in 2023, which found the Metropolitan police to be institutionally racist, homophobic and misogynistic following the murder of Sarah Everard by a Met firearms officer.
There has only ever been one black chief constable in England: Michael Fuller, whose tenure at Kent Constabulary came to an end in 2010
Hampshire police added to the NPCC’s race action plan with extra guidance training officers to understand “the impact, trauma and history of policing ethnic minority communities” – this, presumably, is what they meant.
Another of Farage’s spurious claims was that diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) plans implemented in various English police forces were also linked to Henry’s death. The reality is that there has only ever been one black chief constable in England: Michael Fuller, whose tenure at Kent Constabulary came to an end in 2010. Moreover, according to the latest Office for National Statistics data, the percentage of police officers across English and Welsh constabularies with Asian, black or other ethnic minority backgrounds is 3.8%. Ethnic minorities make up 37.1% of the working age population as a whole.
The one thing I’ll agree with Nigel Farage about is this: DEI policies in the police force are not fit for purpose – but not for reasons he claims. They are failing to ensure constabularies fairly represent and reflect back the communities they police.
It’s hard to imagine any greater incompetence than the police failing in their duty to check whether Henry was bleeding to death in front of them. It’s hard to imagine a greater pain than that suffered by the Nowaks in losing a son in these appalling circumstances. It’s also hard to understand how Nigel Farage and parts of our media have exploited these terrible circumstances for their own ends by producing a conveyor belt of lies.
Sangita Myska is the Nerve’s political commentator and a broadcast journalist. Her latest news report, for Middle East Eye on Trump’s corrupt presidency can be viewed here.