Henry Nowak, 18, was handcuffed by police on a Southampton street and was heard saying 'I can't breathe' as he lay dying from stab wounds on 3 December 2025, after his killer, 23-year-old neighbour Vickrum Digwa, claimed he had been the victim of racist abuse and an attack on his turban, a court has heard.
The news came after an unseen video emerged of Digwa in his back garden more than three years earlier, brandishing what appears to be a gun while another man fires at a wooden board. The footage, filmed by a former neighbour in Southampton on 18 October 2022 and now shared with the media, has deepened questions over how a young man described in court as 'weapons obsessed' was able to go on to stab Nowak five times as the student walked home from a night out.
'Weapons Obsession' and Missed Warning
Digwa was jailed for life at Southampton Crown Court after being convicted of Nowak's murder on 28 May and sentenced on 1 June. The court heard that on the night of the killing, on Belmont Road in Portswood, he was openly carrying a large 21cm dagger when he crossed paths with Nowak, a first-year accounting and finance student.
Prosecutors said Nowak began recording a verbal altercation on his phone after encountering Digwa. The defendant allegedly grabbed the phone to stop him filming, and a struggle followed before Nowak was stabbed five times. Instead of calling emergency services, the court was told, Digwa took out his own phone and filmed the teenager as he lay gravely injured.
The earlier back-garden video is not directly linked to the murder but adds texture to the picture of Digwa that emerged at trial. In the clip, filmed from an overlooking property, a man identified as Digwa can be seen holding a weapon while another person fires bullets at a wooden board propped up in the garden on 18 October 2022.
'We could hear gunshots, we went to look and saw them shooting guns at a wooden board,' the former neighbour said. They told reporters they contacted police at the time, but were told officers could not act because there had been no other reports from residents.
Hampshire Police have since said they have been unable to find a record of that specific report. However, an air pistol was later recovered from the address where Digwa lived with his family during a search carried out after Henry's murder.
During the sentencing hearing, prosecutor Nicholas Lobbenberg KC painted a stark portrait of the defendant, telling the court that Digwa was 'skilled with weapons, trained with weapons, sleeps with weapons, searches for weapons on his phone.' It was a characterisation that sat uneasily alongside the neighbour's recollection of 'a lot of shouting and arguing sometimes' from the property, yet otherwise 'quiet neighbours' who kept largely to themselves.
Henry Nowak-a metaphor for dying Europe-bled out on the pavement after his foreign attacker slashed him, then weaponized "racism" to turn White authorities against their own blood. @EUCouncil
— Chad Samson (@ChadSamson__) June 3, 2026
Vickrum Digwa, 23, stabbed Henry 5 times.
When police arrived at the murder… pic.twitter.com/Vj8hUR2GbS
Police Response Under Scrutiny
The most troubling aspect of the case for many has not been the backyard video but what happened in the minutes after Nowak was stabbed.
When officers arrived on Belmont Road, they were confronted not only with a critically injured teenager but also with a narrative already being pushed by Digwa and members of his family. The court heard that Digwa claimed he had been racially abused and that Henry had knocked off his turban.
His mother, Kiran Kaur, was said to have removed the dagger from the scene, while she and Digwa's brother helped advance what the judge later called a 'wicked lie' about racist provocation and self-defence.
Those claims appear to have shaped the immediate police response. Rather than treating Henry solely as a victim, officers arrested and handcuffed him as he lay on the ground. In the chaos, the young student could be heard saying 'I've been stabbed' and 'I can't breathe' before he died at the scene.
The decision to restrain a mortally wounded teenager based on allegations that were later rejected in court has fuelled public anger in Southampton and beyond. Hampshire Police have apologised and referred their handling of the incident to the Independent Office for Police Conduct.
What is clear from the court record is that the jury rejected Digwa's claims of racist abuse, an attack on his turban, and self-defence. His explanation that he feared for his faith and safety did not withstand scrutiny once the sequence of events, the nature of the wounds, and the aftermath were examined in detail.
The case has exposed a raw set of questions about whose word is trusted first in fast-moving, violent situations. It has also reopened old arguments about how quickly allegations of racism are acted upon, and whether officers brought sufficient scepticism to a story that placed a bleeding teenager in handcuffs while his killer stood nearby.
For Henry Nowak's family, the unanswered questions sit alongside the cold facts. Their son walked home alone after a night out with friends. He encountered a man with a long history of fascination with weapons. He tried to record the confrontation on his phone. He was stabbed five times, filmed as he lay wounded, accused of a racist attack that did not happen, then restrained by the very people called to save him.
