Right wingers and thugs jumped on the story. They didn't care a damn about Henry Nowak or his grieving family's wishes. They wished to push a warped idea that somehow this case proved that British police favour ethnic minorities above the host white community. It was all utter twaddle.
Trump's right-hand man - the odious James David Vance said of this case:-
"Henry Nowak died the same way a civilization dies: abandoned, handcuffed by authorities who neither trusted nor cared for him, and accused of hate crimes
he did not commit. His murder is as tragic as it is enraging. He should still
be alive today, and he would be if the last few generations of European
elites had stood their ground against the politics of self-hatred and the
mass invasion of migrants, many of whom despise the West and the
people who love it."
You would think that a senior American politician, trained in the law would have wished to know the facts and would also have diplomatically kept his nose out of another country's internal affairs. Maybe he would have been better advised to come out and condemn the ICE killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis. But no, he wished to make right wing capital out of a tragedy, never stopping to note that the killer was born and raised in Great Britain. He was not an immigrant and besides, Britain's generally peace-loving Sikh community is long-established on this island. Sikhs contribute a great deal to our society in various spheres.
Ironically, Vickrum Singh Digwa is as British as Usha Bala Chilukuri is American - the aforementioned person being Vance's own wife!
What happened in Southampton that fateful night was tragic and I really feel for the young police officers involved. It was an exceedingly difficult scenario to deal with. It seemed at first that Henry had been the aggressor and it was not clear that he had been stabbed. Vikrum's lies added to the confusion and Henry Nowak was briefly handcuffed.
I had a close look at the judge's sentencing remarks and have picked out three sections to share. They help to clarify the awful events, what really happened. For example it is clear that by filming the situation on his phone, Henry somewhat naively riled Vickrum Singh Digwa. Not a justification by any means but something of an explanation...
HIS HONOUR JUDGE WILLIAM MOUSLEY K.C. HONORARY
RECORDER OF SOUTHAMPTON AND RESIDENT JUDGE
THE KING -v- VICKRUM SINGH DIGWA
SENTENCING REMARKS 1/6/2026
13. In Belmont Road, you and Henry passed each other. You claimed he deliberately barged into you. I am sure that was one of the many lies you have told and repeated since it happened. However, there was an interaction between you both. Henry, perhaps cheekily, made a comment, asking if you were a “bad man.” He was filming you on his phone when he said it. The tone of his voice was not aggressive or threatening but, as it turned out, a tragic error of judgment. It is a reasonable conclusion that the comment was because he had seen the large, sheathed dagger. That would have been a very unusual thing for an 18-year-old student and non-Sikh to see.
14. You moved towards him and, confidently, told him that you were “a bad man.” This was the response, I believe, of someone who thought they were being disrespected, made worse by the perceived intrusion of being filmed. You were not frightened or concerned and grabbed his phone, removing it from him. The exact events which immediately followed were only witnessed by Henry and you. However, it would not be unreasonable to conclude that Henry would have wanted his phone back, believing it had been stolen from him or that he had been robbed. That may have led to a physical struggle between you and him. In that situation, there was every need for self-restraint and control on your part. As someone who was born and raised in the UK, that should have been your focus rather than any distorted view of your religious traditions. Strong words, even a verbal threat, might have been justified but no more.
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27. Another consequence of those lies is that the attending police officers honestly believed that there were reasonable grounds for suspecting Henry had committed an offence and arrested him with the consequence he was handcuffed for about a minute before his condition further deteriorated and the arresting officer began CPR. The police were given a convincing but wholly false narrative of the incident. It was dark and Henry was wearing a dark top. The entry damage caused by the knife through it, would not have been obvious. Whilst there was visible blood on Henry, it would not have clearly been seen coming from that wound and the clearly visible facial wound was not life-threatening. Henry was complaining that he had been stabbed and was struggling to breathe but that would not have necessarily told the officers how serious the situation had become. It is the experience of the criminal courts that sometimes, someone arrested and handcuffed will feign injury in the hope they may be released. These police officers were faced with having to make quick decisions in pressurised circumstances about the best way to act. The genuine shock to the particular police officer, when he realised that he had been giving CPR to Henry when he had a serious chest wound tends to show that he was doing his best in a very difficult situation.
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But for right wing thugs and for prize idiots like James David Vance and Nigel Paul Farage - why let the facts divert you from your fascistic theorising and your shoot now/ask questions later modus operandi?
