Monday, June 1st saw a 23-year-old man sentenced to life imprisonment for killing a University of Southampton student, 18. He will serve at least 21 years.
Vickrum Digwa is a British Sikh found guilty last Friday of murdering the accountancy and finance student on the street last December. His case has fuelled the arguments surrounding Britain’s alleged two-tier justice system.
The murder weapon used on Henry Nowak, which Digwa’s mother has been charged with concealing, was reportedly carried for religious reasons. However, the UK’s Sikh Federation said the weapon used “was not a kirpan,” a small dagger which can be legally carried as an article of faith. (Digwa was also carrying a kirpan at the time of his arrest.) Either way, religious exemptions for carrying a blade in public are now facing scrutiny.
The details of the case have sparked widespread public anger, after it was revealed police handcuffed Nowack as he was dying, thanks to a false allegation of racial abuse made by Digwa. After delivering a fatal stab wound, the killer called the police and claimed to have been the victim himself of a racially motivated attack. He did not call an ambulance and when police officers arrived they initially arrested Nowak despite him alerting them to his deteriorating condition.
Outside court, the victim’s father, Mark Nowak, said
Henry should not have died on the streets of Southampton in police custody. The way he was treated was inhumane and degrading.
He called for a “full, fearless and transparent investigation” by police watchdog the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC).
After a period spent not commenting, including straight after Digwa’s conviction, Prime Minister Keir Starmer finally posted on X to condemn the “awful, shocking case,” calling it
right that the IOPC is investigating the police’s response to [Nowak’s] senseless murder.
