The UK Henry Nowak Scandal, The Sloppy Reporting, And The Real Issues
On 3 December 2025, Henry Nowak, an 18‑year‑old British university student, was murdered by Vickrum Digwa, a 23-year-old British Sikh man, in Southampton, England. Digwa stabbed Nowak five times with a Sikh dagger [but see below], including a fatal wound to the chest. When police officers from Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary arrived, Digwa falsely accused Nowak of assault. Police body camera shows that Nowak repeatedly told the officers that he had been stabbed and pleaded that "I can't breathe," as the police handcuffed him. Nowak died shortly after being handcuffed.
There's been a great deal of sloppy reporting on both sides of the pond, especially regarding the knife Digwa used, which is shown in the police photo above. Even the Wall Street Journal gets this wrong:
This week, Digwa was sentenced to life in prison for murdering Nowak with a knife he carried as part of his Sikh faith. . .
Elsewhere, this knife is described as a kirpan. According to Wikipedia,
The kirpan . . . is a blade that Khalsa Sikhs are required to wear as part of their religious uniform, as prescribed by the Sikh Code of Conduct. Traditionally, the kirpan was a full-sized talwar at around 76 cm long (30 in); however, British colonial policies and laws introduced in the 19th century reduced the length of the blade, and in the modern day, the kirpan is typically a dagger between 12 and 30 cm long (5–12 in). According to the Sikh Code of Conduct, "The length of the sword to be worn is not prescribed", but must be curved and single edged (as its original sword form was), and worn over the right shoulder and across the body.
So an actual kirpan, unlike the knife in the police photo above, is shorter, single-edged, and curved:
The Sikh Federation said the blade used by Digwa was not a religious knife, known as a kirpan.
It has condemned the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) for not making this clear during the trial, telling the BBC the community has been "demonised".
The CPS said that Digwa chose to carry two ceremonial knives and that the judge's finding of fact made clear that he agreed with its assessment that this was a kirpan that Digwa chose to use.
According to The Telegraph (behind a paywall), Digwa wasn't a very good Sikh. He had already been banned from his temple for stealing £1,000 worth of kirpans from the temple in 2023. According to the BBC,
Following Thursday's verdict, the UK Sikh Federation said in a statement: "Fully practising Sikhs who wear a Kirpan should continue to recognise the serious responsibility that accompanies it, together with the limited legal protection that exists for wearing it for genuine religious purposes."
The federation said it believed the large blade used by Digwa "was not the normal Kirpan worn by fully practising Sikhs".
"That's what we wanted to clarify - that actually the perpetrator used an item which can only be called an offensive weapon," it added.
I've got to say I'm on the Sikhs' side here. Good Sikhs are good citizens; there's a Sikh temple only a few blocks from us, and it's part of the community. This guy was definitely not a good Sikh; this is an issue entirely of UK immigration, social, and law enforcement policy, not the Sikh religion. Nigel Farage lays it out clearly:
That barbarous act was bad enough. But what compounded the horror, and shocked so many of us to the core, was the behaviour of the police officers who subsequently arrived on the scene.
Because that help, when it came, was not what young Henry expected.
Far from assisting the dying teenager, the police’s focus from beginning to end was on the allegation made by the assailant’s brother that they had been “attacked and racially abused by a white guy”. In other words, an accusation of a racial slur was treated more seriously than an act of murder.
Henry was handcuffed as he lay bleeding. He died on the pavement. The last words he heard on this earth were not ones of comfort or calming reassurance, but of those police officers coldly reading him his rights. Those images are impossible to watch without feeling a profound sense of anger.
While the incident had to be reported to the Independent Office of Police Conduct, and the local agency did this the day after the murder, the IOPC statement is hardly reassuring:
“Our thoughts and sympathies remain with everyone affected by Henry Nowak’s tragic death.
"Our independent investigation into the contact Hampshire and Isle of Wight officers had with Mr Nowak immediately prior to his death on 4 December, including the use of handcuffs by officers and the first aid provided, remains ongoing.
“Our investigation began following a mandatory referral from the force, which we received the same day.
“We acknowledge that this case has raised questions about the actions of the attending officers and we are aware that a few minutes of police body worn footage has been issued by the force following the conclusion of criminal proceedings.
“As part of our ongoing investigation we are reviewing a large amount of police body worn footage, which we need to consider in context with other evidence we have obtained, including reviewing material presented during the murder trial, as we establish the full circumstances. . ."
In other words, this will be slow-walked until the furor dies down and they can whitewash the whole episode. According to the UK Guardian,
The Guardian understands the IOPC has found no indication of any disciplinary or criminal offence by the officers involved after six months of inquiries, after it was referred to the watchdog in December. Hampshire police said of four officers involved, three remained on full duties and one has resigned.
But the officers handcuffed the dying victim but never handcuffed the perp at all. I asked Chrome AI mode, "What would be policy in the US for officers, as in the Nowak case, handcuffing the victim while never handcuffing Digwa?" It answered,
If American law enforcement officers responded to a scene like the Henry Nowak case—where a severely injured person was handcuffed while the actual attacker (Vickrum Digwa) was left unrestrained due to a deceptive narrative—the officers’ actions would face severe scrutiny under several major U.S. policing policies and legal standards.
. . . When an individual states they cannot breathe or have been stabbed, U.S. officers are legally and contractually required to assess the medical emergency immediately. Handcuffing a prone, heavily bleeding victim worsens positional asphyxia and delays trauma care.
Dismissing statements like "I've been stabbed" or "I can't breathe" to prioritize an arrest for a misdemeanor assault allegation violates standard First Aid/First Responder protocols taught in American police academies.
. . . Handcuffing a person who is slipping out of consciousness, unable to stand, and drowning in their own blood fails the "objectively reasonable" test. The physical state of the individual proves they pose zero immediate threat and are incapable of resisting.
. . . Leaving Digwa completely unrestrained while he is close to a critically injured person violates basic officer safety and scene control protocols. Even if officers initially believed Digwa's claim of being a victim, standard U.S. procedure dictates frisking or securing both individuals temporarily to search for weapons if a violent altercation was openly admitted.
Under the Fourteenth Amendment, if U.S. officers take a person into custody (by handcuffing them), they assume a legal duty of care for that person’s safety and well-being.
In the U.S., acting with such severe negligence would strip officers of qualified immunity, exposing them and their municipality to catastrophic civil rights lawsuits under 42 U.S. Code § 1983.
Had this specific tragedy occurred under U.S. jurisdiction, standard accountability protocols would immediately trigger:
1. An Internal Affairs (IA) or independent state-level investigation for a critical use-of-force/in-custody death.
2. Immediate termination of the officers for violating the department's mandatory Duty to Intervene and Medical Aid policies.
3. A presentation of the case to a grand jury by local or federal prosecutors for potential charges of reckless endangerment or manslaughter.
So far, reporting, especially on the US side, hasn't taken any note of the stark differences between what's apparently expected of UK police and US police, nor the extent to which US Constitutional guarantees would prevent a Nowak-equivalent situation from occurring, or if it did, how quickly severe penalties would accrue both to the officers and later, via the civil system, to the agencies involved.One of the four officers involved was allowed to resign in the immediate wake of Nowak's death, and this has only sharpened suspicion about how the case is being handled:
Henry’s father Mark Nowak, speaking after Digwa was sentenced on Monday, said that officers involved in the case are still on duty, and one was allowed to resign before they had given a full account to the IOPC.
He said: “We believe the officers involved remain on duty although we understand some may since have resigned. One was allowed to leave the force before she had given an account to the Independent Office of Police Conduct of what happened that evening.”
It is understood that the officer who resigned in January was not one of the two who arrived first at the scene. They provided an initial account to the IOPC but have not given a more detailed statement. The other officers involved have all given full accounts.
Comparing the treatment of his son with that of his killer, Mr Nowak told journalists: “His murderer, however, was afforded decency. He was believed. He was not handcuffed when arrested. He was not handcuffed when transported to the police station. As far as we understand, he was never handcuffed at all.
There have been protests in Southampton:
A large group of more than 1,000 protesters marched through Southampton's city centre towards the scene of the crime on Tuesday, local time, and attacked police blocking the road with stones, bottles and bins.
Some members of the rally who gathered outside the city's main police station were heard chanting "two-tier scum" and "shame on you!" while waving British Union Jack and England flags, AFP reported.
. . . Protesters, some wearing masks, then marched to the residential area where the crime took place and attacked a line of police wearing helmets and carrying riot shields, chanting "scum".
American tech tycoon Elon Musk has posted on X an offer to fund a private prosecution against the police over their handling of the murder.
The police response was unhelpful:Nigel Farage continues at the link:British police officers kicks a Henry Nowak protester as he’s pinned down on the ground by several other officers pic.twitter.com/TjaaLauPZQ
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) June 2, 2026
For many people, this case reinforces a growing perception that Britain now operates according to a two-tier culture, where some groups receive greater protection than others. Make no mistake, this is not a perception that emerged overnight. It is the product of decades of political choices.
. . . The Telegraph’s Allison Pearson recently revealed an email from an experienced Hampshire police officer. According to his account, officers are encouraged to respond differently depending on the ethnic backgrounds of those involved. The same officer described a culture in which promotion was influenced by diversity targets rather than merit alone.
If such claims are true, they should concern every citizen, regardless of political persuasion.
Policing depends on public confidence. The public must believe that officers enforce the law fairly and without fear or favour. The moment people begin to suspect that race, religion or background affect how they are treated, trust begins to erode.
Later, Farage went farther:
Appearing via a live stream from a location with fields in the background, Nigel Farage paid tribute to the “extraordinarily dignified” response of the Nowak family, before wading in with remarks of his own.
“I suggest the rest of us respond to this with pure cold rage,” Farage said.
He went on to link the case of Nowak – handcuffed by police after being fatally stabbed by a Sikh man who claimed the student had racially abused him – to “anti-white prejudice” and call for the “promotion of the idea that white lives matter just as much as black lives”.
My own takeaway from this case is that the comfortable platitudes we hear about similar US and UK cultural and legal traditions are simply false. The unwritten UK "constitution" provides nothing like the protections US citizens receive just in the daily course of contact with law enforcement. I'm more and more inclined to agree with Farage that "pure cold rage" is called for, except it seems like we took care of that ourselves in 1776.So far, though, nobody seems to be noticing the enormous differences between the US and UK constitutional and political systems and the poor treatment they afford to ordinary UK citizens.
