The bodycam footage showed 18-year-old Henry Nowak handcuffed and dying on a pavement in Southampton — a killer walking free after falsely claiming to be the victim of a racist attack. Within hours, violent protests erupted across the city. Now, the US vice-president has waded into the furore with a post on X blaming the murder on the “mass invasion of migrants” and insisting the “only response is righteous anger”. Downing Street has roundly condemned JD Vance’s intervention, accusing him of “seeking to stir up division”. A Downing Street spokesman said the Nowak family had themselves “said they do not want his death to be used to create further division”. The spokesman added: “Our politics should bring people together even in the most terrible of circumstances. That is who we are as a country.”
The 18-year-old student was stabbed to death on 3 December last year as he walked home alone after a night out with friends. Vickrum Digwa, who used a 21cm blade he claimed was part of his Sikh faith, was jailed for life with a minimum term of 21 years. The Crown Prosecution Service has confirmed Digwa was born British. In his post, Vance said Nowak had died “the same way a civilisation dies: abandoned and handcuffed by authorities who neither trusted nor cared for him”. The killing was “as tragic as it is enraging”, and Nowak would still be alive, Vance wrote, “if the last few generations of European elites had stood their ground against the politics of self-hatred and the mass invasion of migrants”.
“Downing Street hits back at JD Vance after he blamed Henry Nowak's murder on 'mass invasion of migrants'.”
Josh MacAlister, the minister for children and families, became the latest British politician to push back against Vance when he appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Any Questions programme. “There are people who are trying to import that kind of toxic politics here into the UK and I don’t want to have anything to do with it,” he said. “I don’t think we need advice from American politicians… [on] how to have effective policing here in the UK.”
On Friday, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch added another layer to the political controversy, calling for an “independent rapid review” into the circumstances surrounding Nowak’s death. In a letter to the prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, she wrote that “the questions raised about what followed are of profound public importance” and concerned “overall public confidence in policing and the ability of our institutions to protect those they exist to serve”.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct is already investigating the behaviour of police officers who handcuffed Nowak as he lay dying, while an inquest jury is due to consider next year whether “any act or omission by police officers” or a delay in treatment contributed to his death. The footage that sparked the protests showed Digwa — the real attacker — falsely claiming to be the victim of a racist assault, a lie that initially misled officers and allowed him to go free while Nowak was restrained. The political storm shows no sign of abating.