Murder of Henry Nowak

Lord Davies of Gower Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd June 2026 Lords Chamber

Let that be the challenge to us all, across this House, across government and across society. It is the very least we can do to honour the memory of Henry Nowak. I commend this Statement to the House”.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, this is an appalling and tragic case. The brutal murder of Henry Nowak, the lies told by Vickrum Digwa and the behaviour of the police officers involved have made it all the more sickening. This was a young man, a university student, who was stabbed before being handcuffed by police as he lay dying and crying out, “I can’t breathe”.

I have been a police officer. I was an officer for 32 years, policing some of the most challenging parts of London. I cannot fathom acting in the way those officers acted. The first course of action I would have taken is to prioritise the person who has been injured, yet in this case, when met with a person shouting, “I’ve been stabbed”, the response of one of the officers at the scene was, “I don’t think you have, mate”.

I have said before, and I will say again at this Dispatch Box, that at the root of the problem with modern policing are two things: training and operational discretion. Officers are being trained to tick boxes rather than exercise their discretion and common sense. We need less national guidance and bureaucratic requirements and more focus on training officers to utilise their judgment.

What has also become blatantly clear from this is how police today will prioritise accusations of racism over murder. That is a wholly unacceptable symptom of the corruption of the once widely accepted concept of equality before the law. This is not only evident in the statements and general attitudes of senior police officers and politicians but enshrined in policing policy documents. In March 2025, the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the College of Policing produced the Police Anti-Racism Commitment. That document states that the police commitment to racial equity means:

“Producing equality of policing outcomes for people from different ethnic groups by responding to individuals and communities according to their specific needs, circumstances and experiences, with understanding that these will be racialised”.


It also states—this is the worst part—that racial equity

“does not mean treating everyone ‘the same’ or being ‘colour blind’”.

That is an explicit statement of policy that the police should not treat all ethnicities the same. It encourages police forces to artificially engineer arrests and crime statistics so that they are equalised for all ethnic groups, regardless of offending rates.

That is not equality; that is blatantly two-tier policing. It states that people should be treated differently by the police based on the colour of their skin. We should be clear-eyed about the insidious nature of this approach. It is completely divisive. It promotes sectarianism and the ideology of separatism.

Much of this arose out of the Black Lives Matter movement after the murder of George Floyd in the United States. When George Floyd was murdered by police on another continent, politicians and campaigners in this country rallied behind Black Lives Matter. Senior police officers responded by calling it a

“pivotal moment for policing in the UK”,

even though it happened 4,000 miles away in a very different policing environment. There were numerous protests, with many becoming violent and leading to riotous clashes with police.

Yet with the murder of Henry Nowak and the dehumanising treatment he endured from the police, where are those same voices calling for change? Almost every person who is currently saying that we should not politicise the death of Henry Nowak was more than happy to politicise the death of George Floyd.

Those who criticise the violent protests in Southampton did not bat an eyelid when Black Lives Matter were attacking police officers and tearing down statues. We were told constantly that Black lives matter and that to say that all lives matter is somehow unacceptable. I think there has been a blatantly hypocritical approach to these two cases.

Well, I am very clear: all disorder, rioting and violent protest is totally unacceptable. No one’s death should be politicised. My right honourable friend the leader of the Opposition was absolutely correct when she said:

“I don’t want to hear about Black Lives Matter. I don’t want to hear about white lives matter. We all matter”.


They are two sides of the same coin. This is identity politics. It is a poisonous ideology that divides people by placing them into different groups with supposedly opposing interests. This is not how we foster cultural and social unity and cohesion as a nation. All instances of identity politics must be consigned to the dustbin of history. The police’s treatment of Henry Nowak clearly exposes that. Will the Government commit, very clearly, to scrapping the police anti-racism commitment and all similar ideologically motivated equality, diversity and inclusion policies?

During the proceedings on the Crime and Policing Bill in your Lordships’ House, I tabled an amendment to exclude the police from the public sector equality duty in the Equality Act 2010. I argued then that this duty created a perverse incentive for the police to prioritise equality practices over their one true duty: protecting the public, preventing crime and arresting criminals. Unfortunately, the Labour and Liberal Democrat Benches voted it down. Does this case not clearly demonstrate the folly of the equality duty? This is exactly why we brought forward that amendment: to get the police back on track and doing their actual jobs.

I appreciate the tone and content of the Statement from the Home Secretary but, unless the Government take immediate action to sweep away identitarian politics from the police, her words will never be more than empty platitudes.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, in the face of an unimaginable tragedy, the Nowak family has shown a level of moral leadership that puts many in the political sphere to shame. While others have rushed to use the death of their 18 year-old son to stoke the fires of a culture war, the family’s plea has been for one thing: justice without division. Henry was a young man with a life of promise ahead of him. We owe it to his memory to honour his family’s request for unity, rather than allowing his death to be weaponised by those seeking to tear our social fabric apart.

However, the details that have so far emerged of the police response at the scene raise deeply troubling questions. When we see footage of a dying teenager being handcuffed and told he is under arrest while his killer’s lies are taken at face value, we are seeing the consequences of a system that has lost its focus on the victim. This strikes at the very heart of public trust. We must ask how the basic instinct to preserve life was so catastrophically overridden by a false narrative provided at the scene.

However, we must also confront the “two-tier policing” narrative being peddled by opportunistic voices. This rhetoric is not just false; it is dangerous. It ignores the fact that the perpetrator’s actions were condemned by his own community and that the weapon used was not a protected religious item. Our response must be rooted in fact and liberal values, not in the reactionary populism that seeks to label entire communities for the crimes of one individual.

I have a number of questions for the Minister. Does he agree that this investigation must not only consider the actions of individual officers but examine whether there were systemic failures in training and guidance, particularly in the management of complex and fast-moving incidents? In much of Europe, initial police training lasts years, but in England and Wales the classroom-based foundation is typically 18 to 22 weeks. So I once again repeat our calls for an independent review of police training, which has not taken place since 2018.

Hampshire Police has referred itself to the IOPC. Will the Minister commit to updating the House promptly once that investigation concludes, and to ensuring that its findings are published in full?

Following the trial, there have been reports from Sikh organisations of a significant increase in anti-Sikh hate crime. What steps are the Government taking to support community cohesion and protect minority communities from being targeted in the aftermath of this case?

Can the Minister confirm that the weapon used in this case was not a ceremonial kirpan but a different, larger knife, and that the Government’s focus remains on tackling knife crime in all its forms rather than restricting lawful religious practice?

Finally, does the Minister agree that rebuilding public confidence depends on effective neighbourhood policing, with officers properly embedded in their communities and, crucially, backed by sustained investment, including in youth services, which have been decimated in recent years?