Police apologise for arresting dying teen after killer's 'wicked' racism lie

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:00]Now, here a 23-year-old man has been found guilty of stabbing a university student to death with a Sikh ceremonial knife. Vikram Digwa told police he was the victim of a racist attack after he stabbed a finance student Henry Novak who was 18 on a night out in Southampton last December. Sky's Amelia Harper is here with me. So, the jury rejecting this whole idea of the of this racist element.

[00:00:27]>> Yeah, this is a really awful case. One which involved a bit of misunderstanding when it comes to how the police initially handled the scene that they were met with. Ultimately, this young man has been found guilty of murder after stabbing Henry Novak back in December last year with a ceremonial knife also known as a a kirpan. And Vikram Digwa used this 21-cm knife to stab Henry while he walked home from a night night out in Southampton. He said that he carried this as part of his Sikh faith. And he actually lied to police that he was the victim of a racist attack. This is Henry in the moments leading up to his death. We think that he Excuse me, he is the person standing at the the back of that photo with the white top on.

[00:01:19]So, Digwa lied to police that he was the the victim of a racist attack. He stabbed Henry five times and that the last fatal wound was a wound to his heart. And in terms of the the convictions, he was also convicted of carrying a knife in public and his 53-year-old mother Kiran Kaur was also found guilty of assisting him by removing the weapon from the scene and Digwa had actually given the knife to his mother. Police then later found that at his home along with 20 other Sikh weapons. Now, the controversy that I was talking about involves how the police initially handled the scene that they were met with. So, prosecutors said that the police initially actually handcuffed Henry and only gave him first aid when he started to collapse and was then dying. And we have had reaction to what had happened from Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, and we've got a statement from him. He has said it's shameful that the police handcuffed Henry as he lay dying, especially as he told them he had been stabbed. The police seemed more interested in cuffing someone accused of making a racist comment than in saving a dying man. The Independent Office for Police Conduct Investigation, that's now been confirmed, must get to the bottom of this. The force must apologize to his family, and policing more widely should end its fixation on race and alleged racism in the way it approaches policing. We have since had an apology from the police. We can hear now from Deputy Chief Constable Robert France.

[00:02:51]>> I want to apologize. I want to say that I am sorry that Henry couldn't be saved that night. I'm sorry that he was handcuffed and arrested in the moments before he lost consciousness. It's quite clear that officers didn't understand what had happened immediately.

[00:03:07]And that is some of the context I would ask people to understand. There had been a delay from those who chose eventually to call them.

[00:03:15]There were lies, lies from Henry's killer in that 999 phone call. Further lies from his killer as officers arrived on the scene.

[00:03:24]>> Digwa is due to be sentenced on Monday, and his mother will be in July.

[00:03:28]>> Okay, Amelia, thank you very much.