‘How can you say they’re not racist?’ a young Asian woman shouted from the public gallery. Vickrum Digwa had just been led down to the cells to serve a life sentence and an elderly man in a turban was calling his lawyer ‘a fucking bean head’. The tatty pinewood interior of Southampton Crown Court was descending, once again, into allegations of racism.
Vickrum Digwa will serve at least 21 years in prison for the murder of Henry Nowak. Last December, Digwa repeatedly stabbed the 18-year-old student with a ceremonial Sikh dagger. He then filmed Henry as he bled out, goading him.
When police arrived, Digwa claimed that Henry had been racially abusive and had knocked his turban off. The police believed him, ignoring Henry’s pleas that he was wounded even as he lay on ground, blood streaming from his head. Extraordinarily, police chose to put Henry in handcuffs. The boy kept saying ‘I can’t breathe’. Only once he lost consciousness did police remove the handcuffs and administer CPR.
Why has the language of policing changed so fundamentally?
No one really knows why the altercation happened. Whatever the cause, judge William Mousley KC said that Henry had acted no more than ‘cheekily’ with Digwa in the moments before he was stabbed. ‘I am sure that Henry had said nothing racist,’ the judge concluded. The judge also noted that it is illegal for anyone but a Sikh to carry such a weapon. It’s something we allow in Britain, in the name of tolerance.
