NPCC race guidance under review as Nowak crisis deepens

Overnight the case has escalated with a full parliamentary statement from the Home Secretary, the Prime Minister expressing personal distress at bodycam footage, the commissioning of an HMICFRS inspection and the resignation of one of the officers involved.

Vickrum Digwa was sentenced to life imprisonment on Monday with a minimum term of 20 years and 190 days after being convicted of murdering the 18-year-old Southampton University student on 3 December 2025. Digwa’s mother, Kiran Kaur, has been convicted of assisting an offender and is due to be sentenced on 17 July. The Crown Prosecution Service has authorised further charges against other members of Digwa’s family, though ongoing proceedings mean details cannot be reported at this stage.

NPCC chairman Gavin Stephens announced a review of guidance contained in the organisation’s Race Action Plan. The guidance had suggested officers should treat ethnic minorities differently in order to ensure what it described as equality of outcomes.

Stephens said the NPCC was “listening to legitimate concerns about how some of these commitments are worded or phrased” and confirmed that changes would be made where needed, while stressing that the intent of the plan remained sound.

For frontline officers, the review raises an immediate practical question: whether guidance intended to address racial inequality in policing outcomes may, in specific circumstances, have created the conditions for a different kind of bias – one in which the identity of the parties at a scene, rather than the evidence, shaped the initial response.

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood told the Commons that Digwa “murdered Henry and then lied about him, as he lay dying, falsely accusing him of racism. It was an evil act.” Addressing accusations of two-tier policing directly, she said: “The police in this country have a sacred duty: to police without fear or favour. Everyone in this country is equal before the law.”

She confirmed the IOPC investigation would be fully resourced, telling MPs: “The IOPC will be equipped and encouraged to act, to find the truth and to ensure, if necessary, that there are consequences.”

The Home Secretary also warned against the dangerous undercurrent she had observed in public reaction to the case, revealing that an officer unrelated to the case had been misidentified online, subjected to death threats, and forced to relocate with his family. “Misinformation and inflammatory commentary is making a dreadful situation even worse,” she said.

Sir Keir Starmer said he “felt sick” watching the bodycam footage released by Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary on Monday evening. He called for a full investigation into how “accusations of racism” informed the police’s decision-making at the scene.

Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary confirmed that one of the officers present at the scene on the night of Henry Nowak’s death has resigned. Three other officers involved in the incident continue to serve. The force is subject to an ongoing IOPC investigation into the conduct of those officers on the night.

The bodycam footage released by the force on Monday captures officers arriving at the scene, being led by Digwa’s brother. It shows Digwa presenting himself as the injured party while Henry Nowak is held against a wall by Digwa’s father. The footage captures Henry telling an officer he has been stabbed and that he cannot breathe. The officer replies: “I don’t think you have mate.” Henry is subsequently handcuffed.

The force has previously apologised to the Nowak family for aspects of the initial response and stated that officers reassessed the situation within minutes and began administering emergency first aid after recognising the seriousness of his injuries.

In his sentencing remarks, His Honour Judge William Mousley KC was explicit that the attending officers had been given a convincing but wholly false narrative by Digwa, and that they were doing their best in a very difficult situation. The pathologist established that Henry’s chest wound was unsurvivable from the moment it was inflicted.

Hampshire and Isle of Wight police and crime commissioner Donna Jones has separately commissioned an urgent HMICFRS inspection into the police response, examining control room performance, frontline training in knife crime response and immediate first aid, and how officers are trained to triage competing accounts at the scene of a violent incident, and whether the provision of immediate medical assistance is treated as an unconditional duty independent of any assessment of culpability.

The inspection will run alongside the IOPC investigation and is not intended to interfere with it.

Growing public anger over the case saw officers pelted with bricks, stones, chairs, cans and flares as hundreds of demonstrators gathered in the Portswood area of Southampton on Tuesday evening, close to where Mr Nowak was murdered.

Local community groups reported isolated incidents of harassment directed at Sikhs and Muslims and appealed for calm. Tommy Robinson was among those present at the protests.

The Home Secretary responded with a post on X describing the scenes as “unacceptable” and warning against “hijacking this tragedy to stir up” division.

Mark Nowak, Henry’s father, had made a direct appeal outside court on Monday: “We do not want his death to be used to create further division, hatred or tension. We want his story to help make our streets safer for everyone.”