Handcuffing of dying student after Southampton stabbing sparks outrage in Britain

SOUTHAMPTON: Body-camera footage showing British police handcuffing an 18-year-old student as he lay fatally wounded after a stabbing has triggered outrage in Britain.

Henry Nowak was repeatedly heard saying he could not breathe in footage recorded in December after a night out with members of his football team. The video was played during the trial of 23-year-old Vickrum Digwa, a Sikh man who was sentenced on Monday by Southampton Crown Court to at least 21 years in prison for killing Nowak with a ceremonial knife whose blade measured 21 centimetres, or eight inches.

When officers reached the scene in the southern coastal city of Southampton, Digwa told police that Nowak had racially abused him and claimed he himself was the victim. The footage showed officers initially accepting that account. Rather than treating Nowak as the victim, they handcuffed him even as he told them he had been stabbed and was struggling to breathe.

In the recording, one officer asked Nowak where he had been stabbed before saying:

"Don’t think you have, mate."

Shortly afterwards, the student collapsed and lost consciousness.

After the sentencing, Nowak’s father, Mark, described the police treatment of his son as shocking. The family authorised police to release the body-camera footage.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer, writing on X on Monday, called it an awful and shocking case and said it was right that the independent police complaints watchdog was examining officers’ response to what he described as Nowak’s senseless murder. Referring to the way the teenager was handled, he said:

"inhumane and degrading… his murderer, however, was afforded decency. He was believed"

On Tuesday, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood told parliament that the killing should not be used to inflame tensions between communities. She said:

"We must condemn those who seek personal political profit from tragedy,"

The case also drew political reaction from opposition figures. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch and Reform UK leader Nigel Farage called for changes to police diversity policies. Farage said there should be an end to anti-white prejudice and recognition that white lives matter.

He also linked Nowak’s final words to the 2020 death of George Floyd in the United States, saying:

"I can’t breathe. Familiar words. Remember career criminal George Floyd, who died in appalling circumstances in Midwest America,"

Farage added:

"Keir Starmer was taking the knee. Black Lives Matter exploded all over the country. Churchill’s statue was defaced,"