Even after two days of rancorous debate about Henry Nowak’s death, it’s still instructive, for those of a strong stomach, to read the court proceedings that ended with the conviction of Vickrum Digwa for his murder of 18-year-old Henry Nowak in Southampton. One element was the footage that Henry took on his phone of the encounter that ended his life. He was going home from an evening with friends from the Southampton University football team at a nightclub when he encountered Digwa, finishing a Deliveroo shift.
On the Snapchat video he sent to friends we see Digwa with a large knife carried openly in a sheath outside his clothes. Nowak filmed himself “cheekily” asking Digwa if he was a “bad man” for carrying a knife. Digwa said that he was and snatched Nowak’s phone, ending the video. But Digwa had his own phone.
After stabbing Nowak five times, he filmed him scrambling over a garden fence and collapsing on a gravel driveway. He then phoned his brother who called the police to say, “We have just been attacked racially by some white person.”
Duly, when the police turned up they handcuffed Nowak and arrested him for assault. They ignored him repeatedly telling them that he had been stabbed — “I don’t think you have, mate” — could not breathe and needed an ambulance. It was only when he lost consciousness that they found that he had indeed been stabbed, though he was already bleeding.
Exactly an hour after the police turned up, Nowak died.
The debate about what happened is now focused on the disturbances in Southampton when protesters threw missiles at the police; two are under arrest. But forget, for a moment, the politics of the thing; whether Reform have hijacked the issue, whether Kemi Badenoch is right that it’s a George Floyd moment, whether Reform is “creating grievance and division”, whether Sir Keir Starmer should take the knee. But certainly, let’s say at the outset that it’s grim that the Sikh community — over half a million strong and a model of integration — has been shamed by the actions of one of its members and the family.
But there are important questions which we should consider and the most obvious is whether the sustained accusations of racism levelled at the police — Dame Louise Casey’s denunciation of the Met as institutionally racist is a case in point — have now resulted in a disproportionate and damaging counter-reaction. Is it the case that the police aren’t now content to be impartial in the enforcement of the law, but are now obsessed by race to the point where they can’t see a dying young man in front of their eyes as the victim of an attack?
Why did they ignore the evidence of their own eyes?
Digwa’s brother, primed by Vickrum, called the police to attend a racist attack. What was it about those words, “We have just been attacked racially by some white person”, which made them ignore all the evidence in front of them and to handcuff — a minute after arriving — the victim? What was it that made them ignore Nowak’s condition, his gasping, “I can’t breathe” (no wonder; his chest cavity was filled with blood) and “I’ve been stabbed”? Why, in short, did they ignore the evidence of their own eyes and took the murderer to be the victim when the victim was gasping his life out? Did Digwa use those words in the expectation that it would exculpate him? Was racism the obvious card for him to play?
The independent police body is already investigating what happened. But pending the outcome, we are entitled to ask about the context. Did the training of the police affect their perception of what they saw? A survey of Hampshire police published in The Times suggested that diversity training made some of them feel “controlled and pressured to feel certain ways” or fear being rejected “for saying the wrong thing”.
One element of that conditioning is evident in the National Police Chiefs’ Council’s Race Action Plan, which the policing minister, Sarah Jones, has said is simply a “values document”. It says squarely that “policing is determined to become an anti-racist organisation”. Not non-racist, but anti-racist, and there’s a difference. Obviously the police should be non-racist; that goes without saying.
But anti-racist is something more political. And the explosive element of the policy has been identified by Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary: “It does not mean treating everyone ‘the same’ or being ‘colour blind’ (racial equality).” Yet for most of us, fair policing, equitable policing, means exactly that.
The College of Policing says in its guidance that “police officers and staff should respond positively to allegations, signs and perceptions of hostility and hate”. It adds that “officers and staff should not challenge this initial perception”. So if police are called to the scene of what is billed as a racist attack — we can ask does that training, that prioritising of ethnic and cultural considerations, affect how they treat actual cases?
Nowak died as no young man should die. It’s police and politicians who must say why. Did the police training make them respond as they did? In which case it’s not just the Hampshire force which must be brought to account: it’s a whole rotten mindset.
