At no cost actual time breaking information alerts despatched straight to your inbox signal as much as our breaking information emails
Signal as much as our free breaking information emails
Signal as much as our free breaking information emails
House secretary Shabana Mahmood has warned that “misinformation and inflammatory commentary is making a dreadful scenario even worse” as anger over the case of Henry Nowak was stoked additional by Nigel Farage, who urged the general public to reply with “pure chilly rage”.
In a press release to the Commons, Ms Mahmood revealed {that a} police officer wrongly recognized as having arrested the dying teenager has acquired loss of life threats and been compelled into hiding amid a “harmful undercurrent”.
Chilling video footage from the night time Nowak was killed reveals that police handcuffed the 18-year-old pupil as he lay on the bottom, regardless of his repeated pleas that he couldn’t breathe. He died shortly afterwards.
In footage recorded by a body-worn digital camera of the incident in Southampton, Nowak may be heard repeatedly saying “I’ve been stabbed”, to which an officer replies: “Don’t suppose you could have, mate.”
Sir Keir Starmer described the video as “harrowing”, including: “I’ve to say, as the daddy of a 17-year-old boy, I felt sick watching it.”
Hampshire Police Federation condemned requires “vigilante justice” to be enacted in opposition to officers. The police watchdog, the Unbiased Workplace for Police Conduct (IOPC), is investigating the dealing with of the case.
Vickrum Digwa fatally stabbed Nowak in December 2025 utilizing a ceremonial knife with a 21cm blade, after falsely accusing him of finishing up a racist assault. He was jailed for all times with a minimal time period of 21 years at Southampton Crown Courtroom on Monday.
Mr Farage likened Nowak’s remedy to the killing of George Floyd and mentioned it was proof of a “two-tier tradition”.
In a video assertion on Tuesday, the Reform UK chief referred to as for recognition that “white lives matter” as he referred to the Black Lives Matter motion that emerged following the homicide of George Floyd in 2020.
Mr Farage mentioned Nowak was “truly handled in a method that meant an accusation of a racial slur was handled extra critically than an act of homicide”.
“Sufficient of anti-white prejudice,” he added, suggesting there needs to be “a promotion of the concept that white lives matter simply as a lot as Black lives”.
On Tuesday night time, Mahmood condemned “disgraceful” scenes of violence after riot police had been pelted with bottles and bricks throughout a protest close to the house of Mr Nowak’s killer in Southampton.
Movies shared on social media confirmed officers being pelted with stones and bricks on a residential avenue within the St Denys space, the place Mr Nowak was killed.
Far proper activist Tommy Robinson had joined a whole lot of individuals at a protest outdoors Southampton Central Police Station, the place crowds chanted the final phrases of Mr Nowak “I can’t breathe” and carried placards studying “security is a proper not a privilege”.
Sir Keir’s spokesperson mentioned there’s “no such factor as two-tier policing”, whereas Ms Mahmood mentioned it isn’t useful to pit completely different communities in opposition to each other.
She informed MPs: “The police on this nation have a sacred obligation: to police with out worry or favour. Everybody on this nation is equal earlier than the regulation. It’s the promise upon which our complete justice system rests, and the equality of each citizen is the muse on which the openness, tolerance and generosity of this nation rests.”
She continued: “Threats in opposition to law enforcement officials are totally unacceptable. There may be no justification for intimidation, abuse, or makes an attempt to take the regulation into one’s personal arms. A police officer unrelated to this case has been misidentified on-line and subjected to loss of life threats. He has been compelled to relocate to guard himself and his household.
“Misinformation and inflammatory commentary is making a dreadful scenario even worse. We should all, collectively, condemn it.”
Earlier, chief of the opposition Kemi Badenoch informed ITV’s Good Morning Britain that Mr Farage was “taking sides” and accused him of “whipping folks up”.
“It’s making me indignant as a result of that’s not how we resolve this,” she mentioned. “We will’t resolve it by whipping folks up. We will’t resolve it by making them indignant.
“I’m not taking sides. I’m saying, ‘Sufficient of this.’ We have to cease this racialising of our society.
“We’re multiracial, sure, however we have to cease utilizing race as a method of defining legal guidelines … Let’s deal with everybody equally.”
Digwa’s household have apologised to Nowak’s household and for bringing the Sikh neighborhood into “disrepute”, however mentioned the tragedy shouldn’t be used to “inflame division or hostility in the direction of any neighborhood”.
In a press release, the household mentioned: “The lack of a younger life is a grief that no household ought to ever have to hold. We’re deeply sorry for the ache and struggling the Nowak household has needed to endure.
“We love Vickrum. We are going to proceed to like him. That love doesn’t stand in opposition to the sorrow we really feel for the Nowak household. Each are actual, and each will stay with us for the remainder of our lives.
“We might give something to show again time so the trail of each Henry and Vickrum by no means crossed that night time. We can’t change what has occurred, we simply hope that no additional ache is precipitated in its identify.
“We apologise to the Sikh neighborhood for our son’s actions, which have unfairly introduced the neighborhood into disrepute.”
A gaggle of 11 Sikh MPs mentioned they stand in solidarity with Nowak’s household following the “mindless and tragic” incident.
The police and crime commissioner for Hampshire, Donna Jones, has mentioned she is main requires a evaluate of non secular exemptions to the regulation on the carrying of knives after Nowak’s homicide.
In a press release, Ms Jones mentioned: “Central to this incident is the truth that Vickrum Digwa was in a position to carry a knife in public as a result of there’s an exemption for individuals who observe the Sikh religion to hold ceremonial daggers.
“I intend to put in writing to the prime minister to request a nationwide evaluate of the legal guidelines in regards to the carrying of bladed articles below spiritual exemptions.”
Mr Farage mentioned he had despatched one in every of “a number of requests” for Digwa’s sentence to be reviewed below the unduly lenient sentence (ULS) scheme, whereas a police watchdog probe into how officers responded to the homicide will report again throughout the subsequent three months, in accordance with Ms Mahmood.
Sir Keir mentioned: “It’s completely proper that the IOPC are this. There are clearly severe questions that must be addressed, not least how accusations of racism knowledgeable the decision-making on this case.
“However my ideas, I’m certain the ideas of all people on this nation, are with Henry’s household. His life has been stolen and they’re understandably devastated, and that’s the place I begin on this.”
