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A POLICE WATCHDOG probe into how officers responded to the “horrifying” murder of Henry Nowak will report back within the next three months, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has said.
The 18-year-old student was handcuffed as he lay dying after being stabbed by a Sikh man.
The killer of finance student Mr Nowak, 23-year-old Vickrum Digwa, told police attending the scene of the stabbing in Southampton on 3 December 2025 that he had been the victim of a racist attack.
In body-worn camera footage from the incident, Mr Nowak can be heard repeatedly saying: “I’ve been stabbed,” to which an officer replies: “Don’t think you have, mate.”
The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) said investigators are examining a large amount of body-worn video as well as material presented during Digwa’s trial.
Mahmood condemned Digwa’s “evil act” as she told the Commons “we cannot allow this murder to turn communities against one another”.
Mr Nowak’s family “deserve answers”, the Home Secretary said, “in particular about what happened on that awful night, and the actions of the police officers who arrived on the scene”.
In her response to Southampton Itchen MP Darren Paffey, the Home Secretary said: “I understand that they intend to report finally within the next three months, and I do believe that a meeting is now taking place with the family.”
She also said a police officer had received death threats and has been “forced to relocate to protect himself and his family” after being wrongly identified online as being involved in the case.
She told the Commons: “Henry, aged just 18, was a first-year university student with his life ahead of him. He was kind, hard-working, loved by his family and friends.
“His murder at the hands of Vickrum Digwa was a horrifying act. Digwa murdered Henry, and then lied about him as he lay dying, falsely accusing him of racism.
“It was an evil act.”
She continued: “Threats against police officers are utterly unacceptable.
“There can be no justification for intimidation, abuse or attempts to take the law into one’s own hands.
“A police officer unrelated to this case has been misidentified online and subjected to death threats. He has been forced to relocate to protect himself and his family.
“Misinformation and inflammatory commentary is making a dreadful situation even worse. We must all, together, condemn it.”
Earlier on Tuesday, UK prime minister Keir Starmer, who is understood to have seen the footage of the incident a number of times, told his Cabinet it is “right” the IOPC is examining officers’ actions.
Starmer’s official spokesman said he paid tribute to “kind, thoughtful and much-loved” Mr Nowak, whose life was “ripped away in the most appalling circumstances”.
Mr Nowak’s father Mark Nowak, speaking after Digwa was sentenced on Monday, said: “We do not want his death to be used to create further division, hatred or tension.”
But Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said people should respond with “pure cold rage” to Mr Nowak’s treatment, which he said was evidence of a “two-tier culture”.
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”, Farage said in a video statement.
Mahmood said it would not be “helpful for us to start pitting either majority or different minority communities against one another. That is not what this moment requires”.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch told ITV’s Good Morning Britain there should be “no two-tier policing, no believing that racism only happens to ethnic minorities”.
She added: “It happens to everyone. And the police need to be trained like that, not with the terrible anti-racism training, which is just reverse racism and reverse discrimination.”
Starmer’s spokesman said there was “no such thing as two-tier policing”.
Asked whether the police should be trained differently, the official declined to “prejudge” the IOPC’s finding, adding: “We’re categorical that the police must treat everyone equally.”
On Monday, Digwa was jailed for life to serve a minimum of 21 years for stabbing Mr Nowak with a ceremonial knife with a 21cm blade prosecutors said was a kirpan, which he carried as part of his Sikh religion.
The Attorney General’s Office is considering the jail sentence given to Digwa after being urged to review it.
Digwa, his father Moga Singh (52), and brother Gurpreet Digwa (27) appeared in court to face multiple weapons charges on Tuesday afternoon.
Vickrum Digwa sat in the dock, accompanied by two security officers, wearing a dark suit, blue tie and blue turban.
Magistrates adjourned the proceedings until a further hearing on 9 July.
The killer’s relatives have apologised “for the pain and suffering the Nowak family has had to endure”, and for bringing the Sikh community into “disrepute”.
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