by Ian Paul, Psephizo
The columns of our newspapers and our feeds on social media have been filled with the debate about the political issues raised by the tragic murder of Southampton student Henry Nowak. Nowak was stabbed five times by Vickrum Digwa in December 2025, and Digwa was convicted this week. The case has raised emotive issues—but before reflecting on those, we need to pause to remember his family, their loss, and the terrible way that knife crime both takes and breaks lives.
Before you read on, please pause to pray for Henry Nowak’s family in their loss, and in the reminder of that loss again this week.
But we do indeed need to reflect on the issues that this murder and trial has raised, not least to understand the political issues around it. Dom Helda Camara, the South American Catholic bishop, once said ‘When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist.’ In other words, good understanding is actually part of exercising compassion.
[…] Even from the short video, I found what was going on quite shocking. Why would the police handcuff someone who was on the ground, clearly in distress, and posing no threat? You might argue that, on occasion, the police have to make split-second decisions, and in the heat of the moment, they can get it wrong. But there was no urgency here; this was not in the middle of an ongoing dispute.
I asked a former police officer friend for his view, and he commented:
When I was in, no way you handcuff anyone until
1) they have been arrested (because you’ve established the facts & it needs to happen to deprive someone of their liberty is not to be taken lightly)
2 ) they are then posing a threat to you themselves or others & you can’t otherwise restrain them
This is the result of bad training and (it appears) presumption of who was the victim and who was the perpetrator.
And other (former) police offers have commented online (in a police-interest group):
I served as police officer for some years the inexcusable action here was to cuff the person without first checking properly for knife wounds, whether victim as in this case or offender they should gave checked for his injuries, there appeared to be enough officers in attendance.
“Any application of handcuffs must be strictly lawful, necessary, and proportionate. Officers must have objective grounds to believe the person will escape, harm themselves, or harm others. Handcuffing cannot be used as a matter of routine”
I’m ex police. I do struggle with the fact that, regardless of what was being said by people at the scene, the first thing would have been checking the welfare of the man on the ground, taking personal safety into consideration, but establishing his condition would be a priority. He may have been faking illness or drunk, but in checking that, it would have revealed his injuries, which would then have turned the tables on the accuser, and although it would probably not have saved Henrys life, it would have diminished the immense grief and stress that this case has brought.
One also cited what I think is a police training manual: