Police must answer serious questions about their treatment of Henry Nowak in the minutes before he died, including how false claims he was a racist informed their actions, Keir Starmer said tonight.
The Prime Minister said he ‘felt sick’ after watching bodycam footage of the teenager pleading unsuccessfully for help from officers after he was brutally attacked by Vickrum Digwa.
Nowak, 18, repeatedly said ‘I can’t breathe’ and begged for an ambulance after being knifed six times by stranger Digwa, 23, last December.
But officers instead arrested and restrained the dying university student, mocking his pleas for aid, after being falsely told he had hurled racial abuse at his killer.
Nigel Farage led outrage today, insisting ‘white lives matter too’ and complained of ‘two-tier’ justice.
Kemi Badenoch has also intervened, saying ‘all lives matter’ – but criticised Mr Farage for ‘reinforcing difference’ with his focus on race.
Speaking to broadcasters this evening, Sir Keir also criticised Mr Farage, but said Hampshire Police had to explain how ‘accusations of racism informed the decision-making in this case’.
The Prime Minister said the footage was ‘harrowing’, adding: ‘I have to say, as a father of a 17-year-old boy, I felt sick watching it.’
The Prime Minister said he ‘felt sick’ after watching bodycam footage of the teenager pleading unsuccessfully for help from officers who handcuffed him instead as he lay dying
Police bodycam footage shows innocent victim Henry Nowak, 18, being forced into handcuffs by officers after he was stabbed repeatedly by a knife-obsessed Sikh man
Murderer Vickrum Digwa is seen lying to police as he tells them the teenager ripped off his turban in a racist attack
Henry was a finance student at the University of Southampton and was described as ‘kind and talented’ by his family
Nigel Farage insisted ‘white lives matter too’ amid fury at the teenager’s last moments
Digwa used an eight-inch ceremonial dagger to carry out the murder in Southampton city centre. The injured student was then arrested as he lay dying on the ground, drowning in his own blood.
The killer – who was sentenced to at least 21 years in prison yesterday – did not know Mr Nowak but told a ‘wicked lie’ to officers that he had been subjected to racist abuse, punched, and had his turban knocked off.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood today told MPs that ‘we cannot allow this murder to turn communities against one another’ and said anger should be targeted at ‘those who committed this heinous crime, not all those who share their faith or their ethnicity’.
Earlier, a spokesman for PM Keir Starmer said: ‘There is no such thing as two-tier policing.’
Hampshire Police was last week forced to apologise to Mr Nowak’s family for arresting the fatally injured teenager.
Deputy Chief Constable Robert France told the Daily Mail: ‘I’m sorry that he was handcuffed and arrested.’
The Independent Office for Police Conduct is looking into how the officers acted.
The case has caused international outrage, with tech billionaire Elon Musk offering to fund a private prosecution against the police. There have also been questions about whether anti-racism training may have influenced officers’ judgment.
Keir Starmer reacted to the case last night, saying it is ‘right’ the police actions will be investigated
Mr Farage said the public should respond with ‘pure cold rage’ because Mr Nowak was ‘actually treated in a way that meant an accusation of a racial slur was treated more seriously than an act of murder’.
He warned that ‘we are living in a two-tier culture in this country where the rights and privileges of white people matter less than those of ethnic minorities’.
The Reform UK leader said: ‘What does he say? I can’t breathe.
‘Familiar words. Remember career criminal George Floyd, who died in appalling circumstances in Midwest America a few years ago.
‘Remember the reaction to that and the way the police behaved? Within a few days Keir Starmer was taking the knee. Black Lives Matter exploded all over the country. Churchill’s statue was defaced, the cenotaph was vandalised.’
But Sir Keir tonight accused him of going against the wishes of Mr Nowak’s family with his inflammatory remarks.
The PM told broadcasters: ‘I think Nigel Farage’s reaction is the wrong reaction, and I start my answer to your question through the eyes of the family.
‘They have said they do not want this whipped up. They have been through the most extraordinary, awful experience. They don’t want this whipped up.
‘And Nigel Farage is completely wrong to use this to try and create division.
‘He would be wrong in any circumstances, but when Henry’s family are saying please don’t do that, it is our son, then really politicians as human beings should start where they start. And that is where I start.’
Public comment on the case was previously limited to avoid prejudicing the trial, and police released the footage after the sentencing.
The Attorney General’s office is considering the jail sentence after receiving ‘multiple requests’ to review it under the unduly lenient sentence (ULS) scheme.
An image issued by the Crown Prosecution Service shows the eight-inch ceremonial dagger used by Digwa
Appearing on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, Ms Badenoch said: ‘What Nigel Farage is doing is reinforcing the difference.
‘I have said that we need to find what we have in common, not what separates us. I don’t want to hear about Black Lives Matter. I don’t want to hear about White Lives Matter. We all matter.
‘Enough of this nonsense, where we keep separating everybody and splitting people into different groups. We are descending into tribalism. I do not want that. It is why I say that we should be a multiracial country, not a multicultural country.’
The newly released footage shows the teenager saying four times, ‘I’ve been stabbed’, to which one policeman replies, ‘I don’t think you have mate’.
Officers pull Mr Nowak along the ground as he continues to beg for help, telling them he cannot breathe at least seven times before he is ordered to place his hands in the cuffs.
The student died from drowning in his own blood shortly after his wrongful arrest, Southampton Crown Court heard.
The footage also shows Digwa telling police that his victim had not been stabbed. A female officer replies: ‘I know, but we have to check don’t we.’
Cabinet Office minister Nick Thomas-Symonds suggested the Government will not look again at the exemption allowing Sikhs to carry knives.
He told the BBC: ‘There is an exception in terms of carrying bladed articles in public places for particular religious and ceremonial reasons.
‘And whilst, of course, we’ve been tightening up the law, we’ve banned things like terrible zombie knives, we’ve tightened up the law in terms of online purchasing of knives.
‘It’s not about looking, I think, more broadly at that particular exception.
‘Indeed, if you look at what the judge said in this case, the judge actually said that the minute that this perpetrator removed the blade from the sheath, you can forget any sense of there being some sort of exception to the law.
‘And he also said the fact that this perpetrator was willing to use a bladed article was an abuse of the privilege that Sikhs and indeed other religions have. It was something that made this case worse because of that abuse of that privilege.’
