Henry Nowak was 18, bleeding to death, and the police put him in handcuffs

By Editor. Published 3 June 2026.

Henry Nowak was stabbed four times and slashed across the jaw with a 21 centimetre blade on Belmont Road, Southampton. The fatal wound was to his chest and it punctured his lung. He told the officers who arrived, repeatedly, that he'd been stabbed and that he couldn't breathe. One of them, on bodycam, replied, "I don't think you have, mate."

They handcuffed him. They read him his rights. They arrested him.

About an hour later the 18 year old finance student was dead on the pavement.

The man who'd actually stabbed him, 23 year old Vickrum Digwa, told the police a "wicked lie" that he was the victim of a racist attack. The officers believed him. Digwa wasn't handcuffed at the scene. He wasn't handcuffed in the van. He was taken to Southampton police station, where, as Digwa himself later told the court, officers walked him into the kitchen so he could choose what he wanted to eat.

That's the case in a sentence. The teenager who'd been stabbed got handcuffed. The man with the knife got a menu.

What Happened On 3 December 2025

Henry Nowak was a first year finance student at the University of Southampton, just a few months into uni. He was from Chafford Hundred in Essex. He played football. By every account from teammates and family, he was the kind of 18 year old people gravitate toward.

On the evening of 3 December 2025 he'd been drinking at the Hobbit Pub. He was under the drink-drive limit. Some time before 11:30 PM he was walking in the Portswood suburb when he crossed paths with Vickrum Digwa on Belmont Road. Digwa was carrying what the prosecution described as a Sikh kirpan style ceremonial knife with a 21 centimetre, 8 inch blade. Sikh organisations have since clarified that the kirpans legally carried by practising Sikhs in Britain are tiny, symbolic ones. This wasn't that.

A short Snapchat-style video recovered from Henry's phone, shown to jurors, captured the lead up. Henry was filming Digwa, calling him out, saying "you're a bad man." Digwa, walking away on the footage, replied, "I am a bad man." The footage ends there.

What happened next was the attack. Digwa inflicted what the prosecution described as five "stab wounds or cuts" using the 21cm blade. The fatal one was the chest wound that penetrated his lung. He also had a cut to his jaw and wounds to his legs.

Neighbours called the police after hearing Henry calling out that he'd been stabbed and was dying. There were no eyewitnesses to the attack itself.

When officers arrived, Digwa told them Henry had racially abused him, punched him and knocked his turban off. The officers believed it.

Body worn camera footage, released on the night of 1 June 2026 after Digwa was sentenced, shows what happened next. Henry, bleeding, repeatedly told officers he'd been stabbed and that he couldn't breathe. They didn't act on it. They cuffed him. When officers finally realised the severity of his wounds, they uncuffed him and started CPR. He died at the scene.

A post mortem later concluded that nothing the officers could have done would have saved his life. That's a real and important fact. It does not, however, change what the officers did in the minutes before he died.

He died in police custody

Body worn camera footage, released on the night of 1 June 2026 after Digwa was sentenced, shows what happened next. Henry, bleeding from a punctured lung, told officers he'd been stabbed. He told them he couldn't breathe. He told them repeatedly.

The officers did not render aid. They handcuffed him. They read him his rights. They arrested him.

By the time they realised the severity of his wounds, Henry had lost consciousness. They uncuffed him and started CPR. He died at the scene.

That makes this a death following police contact, in the formal language Hampshire Constabulary uses for its own reporting to the watchdog. Henry died under arrest, in handcuffs, with the police in physical control of him. From the moment they detained him, the police owed him a duty of care. Under Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the state has a positive obligation to protect the life of any person it has taken into its custody. That duty doesn't switch off because the officers thought they had the wrong man.

Hampshire Police have said, through Temporary Deputy Chief Constable Robert France, that a pathologist concluded there was nothing the officers could have done to save Henry's life. That's the force's claim, made in its own apology, and the family and the public are being asked to accept it without seeing the post mortem and without the IOPC having reported. It will be tested by the watchdog and by an inquest. Until then it is what the police say happened, not what has been independently established.

What is independently established is what's on the bodycam. A bleeding 18 year old told the officers he'd been stabbed. They cuffed him. He died.

The Verdict

Digwa stood trial at Southampton Crown Court and ran a self defence argument, claiming he'd been racially abused and feared for his life. The jury rejected it. He was convicted of murder on 28 May 2026.

On Monday 1 June 2026, Mr Justice Bryan sentenced him to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 21 years. The prosecution told the court Digwa was, on the evidence, a "weapons nut" who "trained with weapons, sleeps in a room with weapons, and searches for weapons on his phone." The judge agreed it was a sustained attack on an unarmed teenager.

Within hours of sentencing, Hampshire Constabulary released the bodycam footage. Within 24 hours, the protests started.

Digwa didn't act alone

Digwa's mother, Kiran Kaur, 53, was convicted of assisting an offender after trying to hide the murder weapon. She'll be sentenced on 17 July 2026.

A covertly recorded conversation in Punjabi, played to the jury, captured Digwa's brother advising him to claim he'd been racially abused. The "wicked lie" the police were sold at the scene wasn't a panicked invention. It was, in part, coached.

That detail matters because it goes to the question the Independent Office for Police Conduct will now have to answer. Why was the officers' default to believe one man's racism claim over a bleeding teenager telling them he'd been stabbed.

Why Digwa was carrying an 8-inch blade

The 21-centimetre, 8 inch knife Vickrum Digwa used to kill Henry was a Sikh kirpan style ceremonial weapon. Under Section 139 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, carrying any bladed article in public is a criminal offence in Britain. Under that same Act, Sikhs are exempt if they're carrying a kirpan for religious reasons.

There is no statutory length limit. The Offensive Weapons Act 2019 was specifically amended after community lobbying to make sure even large kirpans stayed exempt. A devout, practising Sikh can legally walk through any British high street with a curved single edged blade as long as they want. The law's working assumption is that they won't use it as a weapon.

Sikh community organisations themselves have made the point. Most practising Sikhs carry tiny, symbolic kirpans, often a few inches long, sometimes worn as pendants. The 8 inch blade Digwa was carrying wasn't a normal article of faith. The prosecution told the court Digwa was a "weapons nut" who trained with weapons, slept in a room with weapons, and searched for weapons on his phone. He didn't kill Henry as part of any religious observance. He killed him with a religiously exempt weapon.

The question Westminster doesn't want to touch is whether an exemption written to respect a faith is doing what it was meant to do, when it lets someone with a documented weapons fixation walk around with an 8 inch blade in their pocket entirely within the law.

London is drowing in knives

This case happened in Southampton. The wider picture is worse.

The Metropolitan Police recorded 16,344 knife offences in London in 2024 to 2025. That's the highest number ever recorded in the capital. London accounts for around 30% of all knife crime in England and Wales while having around 14% of the population. The Met's rate of 182 knife offences per 100,000 people is nearly six times Cumbria's rate of 31 per 100,000.

Nationally, England and Wales recorded 53,000 knife offences in the year to March 2025. Sharp instruments were used in 46% of all homicides. One fatal stabbing happens every 17 hours.

That's the country Henry Nowak was walking home in on 3 December 2025. That's the country his father, Mark Nowak, is now asking Sir Keir Starmer to treat as facing a national emergency.

The Prime Minister called Henry's murder "awful, shocking" on social media. He didn't use the words "national emergency."

What The Family Said

Henry's father, Mark Nowak, flanked by his wife Lucy and daughter Olivia outside the court, did what grieving parents are never meant to have to do. He drew a line.

"Let me be absolutely clear, we hold Vickrum Digwa solely and 100% responsible for the brutal murder of our son," he said. "But Henry should not have died on the streets of Southampton in police custody. The way he was treated was inhumane and degrading."

He went further.

"Henry did not die with dignity. He did not die with the care he deserved. He lost consciousness before anyone believed him."

"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."

"And, as Vickrum Digwa himself told the court, while under arrest for Henry's murder, police even took him to the kitchen so he could choose his food. The contrast is unbearable."

In his victim impact statement, Mark Nowak addressed his son directly. "To my dying son, who I love beyond words, I'm so sorry that I let this happen."

The family is now calling on the British government to treat knife crime as a national emergency.

The Police Response

Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary referred itself to the Independent Office for Police Conduct, the watchdog for police in England and Wales, which has opened an investigation.

Temporary Deputy Chief Constable Robert France issued a public apology. "It is a tragedy that officers did not immediately understand what had happened to Henry. I am sorry that he had been handcuffed and arrested as he lost consciousness." He also said the force had been "misled" by Digwa's lie.

Hampshire Police and Crime Commissioner Donna Jones was sharper. She said the details of the police response "raises serious concerns about police impartiality, fairness and judgment."

Four officers were at the scene. As of 2 June 2026, one has resigned. The other three are still serving. All four are currently being treated by the IOPC as witnesses, not subjects of misconduct proceedings. Whether that changes will depend on the investigation.

Was Starmer Responsible. Was The Government

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer posted on social media calling the murder "awful, shocking" and saying it was right that the IOPC was investigating. He said the country had to "tackle the horror of knife crime."

That's the statement. Whether it lands depends on what people expect from a sitting Prime Minister.

Reform UK MP Robert Jenrick, speaking on GB News before the bodycam was released, drew a direct comparison with the wall to wall establishment response to the death of George Floyd in the United States in 2020. "The Prime Minister says absolutely nothing. The Home Secretary says absolutely nothing."

After the footage came out, Jenrick went further. In the House of Commons on 2 June he called for the officers involved to be prosecuted for what he described as a "total dereliction of duty." That's Jenrick's view, not a finding of any court or investigation.

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, who took the role in September 2025, didn't endorse prosecution. She used her Commons time to warn that an unrelated police officer had been misidentified online as one of the officers at the scene and had been forced to relocate after receiving death threats. She called the misinformation around the case dangerous and asked the public to let the investigation and the courts do their work.

The Fallout

Hundreds gathered outside Southampton Central police station on the evening of 2 June 2026 to protest the police handling of Henry's killing. Tommy Robinson attended. Some reports describe officers being struck with missiles during clashes near the family home of Digwa, and the protests have continued into a second night.

Sikh community organisations have issued public statements condemning the murder, distancing the broader Sikh community from Digwa, and acknowledging that "the actions of police officers who handcuffed the victim just before he died" had "unnecessarily stirred up community hatred." Southampton Test MP Satvir Kaur said clearly that Digwa's actions do not represent the Sikh community.

The trial judge said something similar from the bench. Sentencing Digwa, he told him directly that his actions had "stirred up racial tension in Southampton and across the country which have made many Sikhs worried about their own safety even though they have done absolutely nothing wrong."

The IOPC investigation is now the formal mechanism. It will examine decision making at the scene, whether procedures were followed, what assumptions the officers made and why, and whether there's a wider cultural problem inside Hampshire Constabulary or British policing generally.

What Can Be Done About This

A few things are already on the table.

The first is the IOPC investigation. It has to run independently and transparently and to a conclusion. The family deserves it. The country deserves it. The Sikh community, which had nothing to do with this murder and has been clear about that, deserves it.

The second is bodycam transparency. The footage existed for six months before the public saw it. Body cameras are paid for by the British taxpayer to provide an objective record. The default should be timely release, not release only when it becomes politically unavoidable.

The third is the knife crime question Mark Nowak has put squarely on the desk of the Prime Minister. Britain has a knife crime problem that has been building for a decade and Henry Nowak is one name on a list that's far too long.

The fourth, and this is the one nobody in Westminster much wants to touch, is policing culture. The officer who told a stabbed teenager "I don't think you have, mate" wasn't acting on a hunch. He was acting on what he'd been told, and what he'd been told was a claim of racism. Whether British policing has trained itself to weight that claim above the visible reality of a bleeding 18 year old is the live question the IOPC will be asked to answer.

Why it Matters

It matters because in the minutes between the stabbing and the death, the people Henry called on to help him decided his account didn't count. The man with the knife was believed. The bleeding teenager was cuffed. He died while still under arrest.

It matters because the British public watched the bodycam and could see what had happened with their own eyes, which is why one officer resigned within 24 hours and why hundreds turned up at the police station the next night.

And it matters in Australia because the same instincts, the same training, the same assumptions that produced this scene exist inside policing well beyond the United Kingdom. If officers can be trained to default to one set of assumptions over another, they can be trained out of it too. That's the conversation Henry Nowak's death has forced.

He was 18. He was stabbed four times and slashed across the jaw. He told the police what had happened. They handcuffed him anyway. He bled to death in their custody.

His killer chose his food at the station. Henry didn't get the chance to choose anything.

SOURCES

https://www.gbnews.com/news/henry-nowak-police-officer-resigns https://www.foxnews.com/world/english-cops-cuffed-teen-stabbing-victim-after-attacker-claimed-racial-assault https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/06/02/uk-stabbing-victim-handcuffed-sikhs-knives-race/87bb3ac8-5eb3-11f1-9c46-d6211372eede_story.html https://www.wsls.com/news/world/2026/06/02/uk-police-handcuffed-teen-who-died-from-stab-wound-in-a-case-stirring-race-and-policing-debate/ https://www.aol.com/articles/henry-nowak-father-says-way-082344000.html https://www.aol.com/articles/football-match-honours-18-old-190825623.html https://news.sky.com/story/police-apologise-for-arresting-dying-teen-after-killers-wicked-racism-lie-as-man-found-guilty-of-ceremonial-knife-murder-13548726 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shabana_Mahmood