{"id":464506,"date":"2026-06-06T21:20:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T21:20:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/464506\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T21:20:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T21:20:15","slug":"uk-pm-criticises-vance-over-comments-about-teens-stabbing-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/464506\/","title":{"rendered":"UK PM criticises Vance over comments about teen’s stabbing death"},"content":{"rendered":"

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office on Friday (local time) condemned comments by US Vice President JD Vance, who blamed immigration for the death of a university student <\/a>who was handcuffed as he lay dying from a stab wound.<\/p>\n

Henry Nowak, 18, died after being stabbed by Vickrum Digwa in the English city of Southampton in December. Digwa, who is Sikh, falsely claimed to police he was the victim of a racist assault by Nowak, who was white. When police officers arrived, they initially treated the wounded man as a suspect before noticing his injury and trying to resuscitate him.<\/p>\n

Digwa, 23, was convicted of murder for stabbing Nowak with a 21cm Sikh dagger and sentenced this week to life in prison with a minimum 21-year term.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

(Source: Supplied)<\/p>\n

The case has been seized on by anti-immigration activists and politicians, despite the fact that both Nowak and his killer were British. <\/p>\n

On Tuesday, police in Southampton were pelted with chairs, cans, rocks and flares<\/a> after a demonstration over Nowak\u2019s death attended by far-right figures and others.<\/p>\n

Vance said in a post on social platform X on Friday that there should be \u201crighteous anger\u201d in response to the murder, which he blamed in part on \u201cthe mass invasion of migrants, many of whom despise the West and the people who love it\u201d.<\/p>\n

In a statement issued in response to Vance’s comments, Starmer’s office criticised people \u201ctrying to interfere in our democracy and seeking to stir up division on our streets”. <\/p>\n

Police detained the wrong person after Henry Nowak\u2019s assailant lied to officers.\u00a0 (Source: BBC)<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Nowak family are grieving after Henry\u2019s horrific murder. They have said they do not want his death to be used to create further division, hatred or tension. We should be respecting their wishes,\u201d Downing Street said in a statement. \u201cOur politics should bring people together even in the most terrible of circumstances. That is who we are as a country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ed Davey, leader of the centrist opposition Liberal Democrats, said: \u201cWe all need to resist attempts like this to politicise Henry Nowak\u2019s death and divide our country \u2014 whether they come from MAGA politicians like Vance or their cronies here in the UK\u201d.<\/p>\n

Politicians including Nigel Farage, leader of the hard-right party Reform UK, have claimed that the police response is evidence of \u201ctwo-tier\u201d policing, with a bias against white people in the British justice system.<\/p>\n

The US State Department echoed the \u201ctwo-tier\u201d policing claim in a post on X Thursday, expressing condolences to Nowak’s family and saying that \u201cIdeological conditioning and two-tiered policing are glaring symptoms of civilizational decline”. <\/p>\n

The British government rejected the \u201ctwo-tier\u201d allegation, which is not backed by statistical evidence.<\/p>\n

The Independent Office for Police Conduct, which investigates allegations of police wrongdoing, is probing the actions of police officers responding to Nowak\u2019s stabbing.<\/p>\n

The victim\u2019s father, Mark Nowak, has said the case was not about racism or religion, and that he wanted his son\u2019s death to lead to safer streets and not to be used to create \u201cfurther division, hatred or tension”. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office on Friday (local time) condemned comments by US Vice President JD Vance,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":464507,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[67,42,43,40,38,41,39,1745],"class_list":["post-464506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-crime-and-justice","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-uk-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464506\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/464507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}