The police officers who handcuffed and arrested dying teen Henry Nowak took around eight minutes to find that he had been stabbed after initially dismissing his plea, according to a recently released full transcript.
Following a trial that saw 23-year-old Vikrum Digwa sentenced to at least 21 years in prison for the murder of 18-year-old Henry Nowak with a traditional Sikh blade in Southampton, England, the Hampshire Constabulary released a partial, 3-minute clip of police body cam footage in which officers were seen handcuffing the dying teen and refusing to believe that he had been stabbed.
The Southampton Crown Court heard that Digwa was a serial liar and had told the police a fabricated story that Nowak had been racially abusive to him. Despite Nowak’s pleas, saying in a strained voice that he could not breathe and that he had been stabbed, officers apparently bought Digwa’s lies. At one point in the clip, an officer infamously replied to Nowak’s claim of being stabbed, “I don’t think you have, mate,” as he handcuffed and arrested him.
On Wednesday, the BBC published the purported full transcript of the fatal events, in which the public broadcaster reported that officers took nearly eight minutes before realising that Nowak had indeed been stabbed. According to the report, a female officer asks for a flashlight and scissors to inspect Nowak at around five and a half minutes into the interaction.
After seven minutes and 33 seconds, the officer cuts through the teenager’s clothing, and the other male police officer asks if he had been stabbed.
“Yes, he’s got a stab… there’s a mark there,” the female officer replies. The male officer said, “That makes it worse. He’s got a stab… I’m pushing on a f****** stab wound.”
“That’s okay. It’s fine… It’s not coming out. It’s fine. Keep going. Keep going. It’s not bleeding out,” the female officer said.
The transcript ended around 9 minutes in, when ambulance staff arrived on the scene and took over attempts to aid Nowak. Before concluding, the transcript recorded the male officer telling a paramedic that they had “just discovered a stab wound” in Nowak’s chest.
According to the BBC, attempts to save Nowak’s life continued for another 51 minutes; however, they proved unsuccessful, and the 18-year-old was later pronounced dead by an emergency doctor who was flown in by helicopter to the scene.
The Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary has claimed that a pathologist confirmed that “there was nothing officers could have done that day to save Henry”, given that the wound had caused “extensive” internal bleeding.
However, the response from the police has come under heavy scrutiny and sparked protests in Southampton over what many have asserted was an example of two-tier policing in which ethnic minorities who allege racism are given preferential treatment over white Britons.
During the trial of Nowak’s murderer, Vikrum Digwa, Judge William Mousley KC told the Southampton Crown Court that the “genuine shock” of the officer when he finally realised that the teen had actually been stabbed “tends to show that he was doing his best in a very difficult situation.”
However, some, such as Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, have said that the tragic death was an end result of British institutions being infected with the ‘Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion’ ethos, in which authorities are trained to seek to elevate ethnic minorities and treat the native white population with suspicion.
Mr Farage warned that British society risks being “ripped apart” and devolving into a situation in which “communities start to distrust each other and deeply distrust the police and all the other institutions of this country”
“We need a change in culture. Enough of anti-white prejudice. A promotion of the idea that white lives matter just as much as black lives. An end to DEI and positive discrimination, but a country that treats everybody equally and fairly before the law,” he said earlier this month. “This is serious, this is urgent. I fear for where our society should be in a few short years if we don’t grip this and do it very, very quickly.”