A Sikh man has been found guilty of murdering a White university student who bled to death in handcuffs because his lying killer tricked police into arresting him for racism in a crime that shocked Britain.
Deliveroo worker Vickrum Digwa, 23, stabbed Henry Nowak, 18, multiple times with a 21cm-long religious Sikh knife while the finance student was walking home from a night out in Southampton on December 3 last year.
Police then arrested Nowak after believing Digwa’s claims that he had been racially abused, and ignored the dying man despite him telling them he had been stabbed and begging for help. Nowak, whose last words were “I can’t breathe”, then lost consciousness and could not be revived.
The case has sparked anger in the UK and worldwide, with X owner Elon Musk last week offering to fund a private prosecution against the police force, and commentators saying the case was worse than the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020.
Digwa faced a two-week trial at Southampton Crown Court charged with murder and carrying a knife in public, alongside his mother Kiran Kaur, 53, who was charged with assisting an offender by hiding the ceremonial shastar blade her son used to murder Nowak. Both were found guilty by a jury on Thursday.
The murderer will be sentenced on Monday and Kaur will be sentenced on July 17.
The Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary has referred itself to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), and temporary deputy chief constable Robert France apologised for the actions of his officers.
“This was an extremely complex investigation and actually the scene itself was extremely complex when officers arrived,” he said in a statement to BBC News.
“They were lied to in the 999 call by Henry’s killer, they were lied to as they arrived at the scene and we know that as a result they didn’t understand what had happened for several minutes and that is an absolute tragedy.
“It is a tragedy that officers did not immediately understand what had happened to Henry. I’m sorry that he had been handcuffed and arrested as he lost consciousness. I don’t want to hide the facts. I want people to understand the full facts.”
The Sikh Federation UK also released a statement where they said “Henry’s life has tragically been cut short by a moment of madness by an individual for which there can be no excuses” but also complained about racial abuse during the trial and that the British public don’t understand the “significance” of Sikh religious daggers.
The trial heard Digwa used racism as a “trump card” to get police to arrest Nowak when they arrived, and prosecutor Nicholas Lobbenberg KC called it a “wicked lie about a dying man”.
Digwa, who had been out helping his brother with Deliveroo work, stabbed Nowak six times from the front and six times in the back, and then stole Nowak’s phone, which was found in his pocket.
Kaur, who was called to the scene with Digwa’s father and brother, then took the knife back to the family home where she stashed it with about 20 other Sikh weapons.
Header image: Left, Vickrum Digwa (Hampshire Police). Right, Henry Nowak (supplied).
The post Sikh guilty of murdering student who bled to death in handcuffs due to racism lie first appeared on The Noticer.
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