Bodycam footage showed police handcuffing 18-year-old Henry Nowak as he lay dying on a Southampton pavement, after his killer falsely claimed he was the victim of a racist attack. Vickrum Digwa, who is British and was born in the UK, was jailed for life for stabbing Nowak with a blade he said he carried for religious reasons linked to his Sikh faith. The killing ignited violent protests and a fierce debate about policing and knife laws.
Then US Vice-President JD Vance waded in. On Friday, Vance wrote on X that Nowak had died “the same way a civilisation dies: abandoned and handcuffed by authorities who neither trusted nor cared for him”. He blamed the death on the “mass invasion of migrants” and said the “only response” was “righteous anger”.
“David Lammy told JD Vance his comments blaming Henry Nowak's murder on migration were 'wrong'.”
Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy told the BBC he called Vance on Saturday to tell him he was “wrong”. “I told him he was wrong,” Lammy said on the Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme. He said the conversation was “agreeable” and “robust”, and that he reminded Vance the killing “has got nothing to do with mass migration”. Lammy added that Nowak’s family had “called for calm”.
Nowak’s father, Mark, had appealed for calm outside court after Digwa’s sentencing, saying: “We do not want his death to be used to create further division, hatred or tension. We want his story to make our streets safer for everyone.” Downing Street also hit back, saying those “seeking to stir up division” were not helping.
In the House of Lords, Doreen Lawrence reminded colleagues that a family’s grief should not be turned into a political weapon. The New Statesman, in a commentary on the exploitation of Nowak’s death, noted that “incorrect narratives can inflame an already bad situation” – a reference to the false assumption, spread before the facts were known, that the offender was a foreign national.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct is investigating the actions of officers who handcuffed Nowak as he was dying. Legitimate questions remain about whether duty of care was met. But as the New Statesman warned: “Accountability is not the same as speculation.”