Henry Nowak case reignites claims of unfair policing

"Harrowing" was how Sir Keir Starmer described the bodycam video footage showing 18-year-old Henry Nowak's final moments.

We're told the PM watched the footage multiple times. He told broadcasters he "felt sick" watching it.

The outrage at the teenager's death is shared by all who have seen the footage.

It has prompted the Conservatives and Reform UK to say the UK should not have "two-tier policing," with people treated differently because of the colour of their skin. Downing Street rejects the claim such discrimination exists.

The video shows officers believing Henry Nowak's murderer, Vickrum Digwa, who lies to them that Nowak had racially abused him.

Nowak is handcuffed and arrested, not initially helped, despite telling police he'd been stabbed and couldn't breathe.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch called it "absolutely appalling".

She said the gravity of Nowak's wounds meant police could probably not have saved his life, but "what I see now is...police who don't know how to do the right thing anymore".

Badenoch said she blamed "the training that police have been given, all of this nonsense that came in after the Black Lives Movement".

She added: "I do not want police looking at the colour of your skin when they're deciding how to treat you...I think they are, because that's what they're being taught."

Reform's Nigel Farage claimed on social media it showed a "two-tier Britain...where the rights of white people matter less than ethnic minorities".

He said the response should be "pure cold rage" - sending a message that people had had "enough of anti-white prejudice" and "white lives matter just about as much as black lives".

Badenoch has criticised him for that, saying while she wanted to see change "we don't need rage, which is what Nigel Farage is pushing".

And Sir Keir went further, saying Farage's reaction had been "completely wrong to use this to try and create division".

The teenager's family, he added, "don't want this whipped up".

With the political temperature rising around the issue, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood stepped in to make a statement in the Commons.

She too had found the video "heartbreaking", saying "it is, without question, a disturbing and tragic thing to see. People are rightly asking questions about how the situation was handled".

But Mahmood said the appropriate response was to let the Independent Office for Police Complaints (IOPC), the policing watchdog, look into what had happened.

"There have been accusations, I know of two-tier policing, that one community has been prioritised over another," she said, but added that it would be for the IOPC to determine "the facts with regard to this specific case".

She said that the watchdog would determine whether individual officers were guilty of misconduct and look into "any wider lessons".

Responding to Reform's claims that the needs of minority communities matter more, she said: "I don't think this is a moment to pit white Britons against non-white Britons", and any "political grandstanding" should be rejected.

The home secretary also warned of a "dangerous undercurrent" related to the criticism of police, saying there had already been "threats against police officers" following the case.

She said a police officer unrelated to the case had been forced to relocate, warning that "misinformation and inflammatory commentary is making a dreadful situation even worse".

Meanwhile the Attorney General's office is also looking into the matter, after it received "multiple requests" to consider whether the sentence given to Vikrum Digwa was too lenient.

He was given life sentence with a minimum term of 21 years. The Attorney General now has 28 days under the Unduly Lenient Sentence scheme to decide whether to ask the Court of Appeal to look into the sentence.

The court could seek to increase the term, but only if it believes there has been a serious error made by the trial judge and public confidence would be damaged if the sentence was left unchanged.