Henry Nowak: Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer “felt sick” watching footage of student being handcuffed after being stabbed by Vickrum Digwa

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said he “felt sick” watching footage of police handcuffing student Henry Nowak as he lay dying. The PM said there are “serious questions” to answer over the case, amid claims “accusations of racism” informed the police’s decision-making in the case.

Killer of finance student Mr Nowak, 23-year-old Vickrum Digwa, told police on the scene of the stabbing - in Southampton on December 3, 2025 - that he had been the victim of a racist attack. In body-worn camera footage from the incident, Mr Nowak can be heard repeatedly saying: “I’ve been stabbed,” to which an officer replies: “Don’t think you have, mate.”

The Prime Minister said the footage was “harrowing” and added: “I have to say, as a father of a 17-year-old boy, I felt sick watching it.”

The police watchdog is expected to report on the case within the next three months. The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) said investigators are examining a large amount of body-worn video as well as material presented during Digwa’s trial.

Sir Keir said: “It is absolutely right that the IOPC are looking at this. There are clearly serious questions that need to be addressed, not least how accusations of racism informed the decision-making in this case.”

Digwa was given a life sentence with a minimum of 21 years in prison for stabbing Mr Nowak with a ceremonial knife with a 21cm blade prosecutors said was a kirpan, which he carried as part of his Sikh religion. He had previously been investigated by police in 2023 on suspicion of stealing ceremonial blades from a Sikh temple in Southampton but no further action was taken.

Mr Nowak’s father, Mark, said after Digwa was jailed on Monday (June 1): “We do not want his death to be used to create further division, hatred or tension.”

But Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage, said people should respond with “pure cold rage” to Mr Nowak’s treatment, which he said was evidence of a “two-tier culture”. Mr Nowak was “actually treated in a way that meant an accusation of a racial slur was treated more seriously than an act of murder”, Mr Farage said.

The Prime Minister said Mr Nowak’s family “don’t want this whipped up” and “Nigel Farage is completely wrong to use this to try and create division”.

Meanwhile, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch told ITV’s Good Morning Britain there should be “no two-tier policing, no believing that racism only happens to ethnic minorities”.

She added: “It happens to everyone. And the police need to be trained like that, not with the terrible anti-racism training, which is just reverse racism and reverse discrimination.”

In the Commons, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood warned “misinformation and inflammatory commentary is making a dreadful situation even worse”. She told MPs a police officer wrongly identified as being involved in the case has received death threats and been forced to relocate to protect himself and his family.

Elsewhere, a statement issued by the killer’s family apologised “for the pain and suffering the Nowak family has had to endure”, and for bringing the Sikh community into “disrepute”.

And on Tuesday evening, it emerged one officer involved in the Nowak case had resigned. A Hampshire Police spokesperson said: "Three of the officers are still serving, one officer has resigned. As the IOPC has confirmed, they are all being treated as witnesses, so not subject to any current restrictions."