HAMPSHIRE Constabulary still officially admits nothing wrong in its handling of Henry Nowak. However, after more leaks and revelations over the weekend, the police have new questions to answer on how they dealt with the attack on Henry, his family, public information and protesters.
As a certified private security professional, with experience of dispatching police officers, and supervising and recording the arrest and care of criminal suspects, let me start with the call to 999 and the bodycam footage that were released last week.
Late on December 3, four police officers casually walk to the scene of a violent altercation, as reported by one witness. He is Gurpreet Digwa, the brother of Vickrum Digwa, an alleged victim of racism.
The 999 call lasts nearly 12 minutes, during which the murderer and family might have saved Henry’s life by rendering first aid themselves or calling an ambulance, by admitting Henry’s wounds or encouraging bystanders to help.
Instead, the call is laced with complaints about being victimised for being ‘brown’. This narrative is directed to both the police and bystanders. The narrative is that brown victims have defended themselves from ‘some white person’, later specified as a drunken racist. The caller says they are ‘restraining’ the racist. When asked (three times) about weapons, he denies seeing any, and eventually speculates that the racist might have some. He wants ‘police urgently’. This is self-interested. At points, the caller tells bystanders to keep away from Henry, because police are coming. When asked about medical needs, he is uncertain. All he says is that Henry supposedly fell over and ‘hurt his face’, which becomes ‘bit his lip’. In fact, Henry has been stabbed in the face.
Much time has been lost. Worse, somehow the emergency responders squander the time remaining in which Henry Nowak’s life could have been saved.
1. Why were medical personnel so late?
Time is of the essence in any emergency, particularly one described as an active altercation. The fighting might escalate. The medical needs might be greater than the caller admits.
In this case, the first to arrive are the police, who eventually put in a call for an ambulance. At some point, an air ambulance with a doctor was despatched, but arrived too late. Henry was pronounced dead at the scene about 67 minutes after the first call was made. He should have been in A&E about an hour earlier.
2. Why did police officers stroll up without urgency?
The police arrive around the end of the 999 call, which lasts 11 minutes and 50 seconds.
Hampshire police reported their arrival within seven minutes. This can be true only if timed for arrival on the street, not at the crime. The discrepancy is likely due to confusion as to location and house number.
While the officers might not be blameworthy for an incorrect address, what struck me on first watching the footage (I have hated having to re-watch it), is the casualness of the officers and their lack of curiosity. Even their physical posture is unconcerned and relaxed.
The footage betrays no evidence of relief from the officers that they have found the correct location, or of urgency to reconcile an emergency.
3. Why did police not call for witnesses from onlookers?
We now know that the crowd included the murderer’s relatives and unrelated neighbours with genuine concern for Henry’s wellbeing, some of whom seem to have been intimated by the Digwas. (After Henry is detained, just one officer is sent to speak, vaguely, with the crowd.)
One man is with Henry when the police arrive. He indicates where Henry collapsed (and probably tried to hide), between a car and a home. He says Henry is bleeding. The officers do not ask this witness anything, but quickly indicate that he should get out of the way.
4. Why did officers not show scepticism of the ‘brown victim’ and instead focus on the ‘white suspect’?
The officers hear a too-quick, too-prepared narrative from the supposed victim – for which the only evidence the claimant can point to is a missing turban and an allegedly bruised eye (no bruising is apparent in the video or the mugshot). They soon indicate they’re satisfied.
5. Why did police ignore the revelation that Henry was in flight?
Vickrum Digwa spills, unprompted, the revealing fact that Henry got to this location by climbing over a fence – leaving a shoe behind.
This should have suggested to anyone within earshot that the supposed attacker was actually running away. The murderer did not admit that he had stabbed Henry’s legs while Henry was climbing the fence.
6. Why did the officers manipulate a man who is bleeding and describing a stabbing?
The officers drag Henry across the gravel, sit him up and seize both hands with intent to handcuff him. The police ignore blood on Henry’s face, in his mouth, and on his clothes, and his repeated statements (audibly impaired by blood) that he can’t breathe and that he has been stabbed. The nearest officer to the bodycam audibly replies: ‘I don’t think you have, mate.’
Another officer reportedly stated: ‘He hasn’t been stabbed.’
7. Did the manipulations hasten Henry’s death?
I suspect that dragging Henry on the ground, sitting him up, and twisting his torso exacerbated the wound to his lung.
But the officers make it worse. They let Henry slump on his side, when he exclaims, in panic: ‘I can’t breathe.’ He is twisting and writhing on the ground, trying to find comfort, while the officers continue to tighten the cuffs and hold him down.
I suspect that the positioning concentrated the blood in Henry’s lungs towards his trachea. He is choking. But the officers remain intent on cuffing and holding him. The nearest officer replies: ‘Put your hand in the cuff, mate.’
8. Why were officers intent on handcuffing an incapacitated man?
The officers seem to prefer to hold Henry down on the ground, in this awkward position, for control. Three officers surround one subject, even though he is clearly incapable of resisting arrest, even if he deserved arrest.
The nearest officer says: ‘At the moment you are under arrest for assault.’ Note that he said assault, not ‘suspicion of assault’. As Henry’s poor father complained on the steps of the court, these are likely the final words that Henry would have heard as he passed out.
Even if assault is the suspicion, even if the subject is under arrest, you do not need to handcuff a subject who is not resisting arrest and does not pose a threat – who, indeed, is incapable of sitting, and is telling and demonstrating to you he has been stabbed.
9. Why did the officers not attempt to place Henry in the recovery position?
This is easy to do even if the subject is cuffed. The officer who cuffed Henry appears to know that Henry can’t sit up, but frames lying down as a concession. The officer, still holding Henry’s hands, says to another officer that ‘he’ seems more comfortable on ‘his’ side. They still haven’t asked ‘his’ name.
10. Why did officers not respond to Henry’s unconsciousness?
The police watch Henry quickly fall into unconsciousness, without an expression of concern or attempt at resuscitation or even examination. He is drowning in his own blood. Amazingly, they say little more. For now, they seem satisfied in keeping Henry down and quiet.
The female officer eventually kneels down, tugs Henry’s top out of his trousers. His bloody white shirt is visible, at least to the bodycam worn by the officer holding Henry’s hands behind his back. But nobody comments.
Eventually the female officer quietly ponders calling an ambulance. Three minutes after Henry’s collapse, the police start CPR, which probably exacerbates the mortal wound – which they still haven’t discovered – because they still haven’t examined him for wounds.
11. Why did police treat the murderer better than the victim?
The murderer is never handcuffed. Digwa is taken to the station as a witness, with his second knife still hanging around his neck. His mother has hidden the murder weapon. At some point, he surrenders his ceremonial knife, or kirpan, to the custody desk. A source told the Sun: ‘Either the arresting officers knew he had the kirpan on and let him keep it on after his arrest, or they missed it and it was only picked up when he was searched at the police station.’
Digwa isn’t arrested until Hampshire Police hear from medical staff that Henry died from a stabbing. The Digwas had not mentioned any stabbings. They still claim to have been the victims of a racist attack. They continued to claim as much during sentencing.
The day after Henry’s death, Hampshire Police arrested Vickrum’s brother and his father, Moga Singh, for possession of offensive weapons, including batons and swords. Later, police will arrest his mother for hiding evidence.
To be continued.
