{"id":659404,"date":"2026-06-26T13:56:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T13:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/659404\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T13:56:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T13:56:10","slug":"murderer-of-henry-nowak-shown-in-new-footage-lying-about-facing-racist-attack-crime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/659404\/","title":{"rendered":"Murderer of Henry Nowak shown in new footage lying about facing racist attack | Crime"},"content":{"rendered":"

The murderer of Henry Nowak, the student whose death sparked riots in Southampton<\/a>, is seen lying to police officers about being racially attacked in newly released bodyworn camera footage.<\/p>\n

Vickrum Digwa, 23, was jailed for life with a minimum of 20 years<\/a> this month for stabbing the 18-year-old five times in December last year.<\/p>\n

When police arrived at the murder scene in Southampton, Digwa falsely claimed Nowak had racially abused him and knocked his turban off, causing officers to arrest and handcuff the student before they saw his fatal injuries.<\/p>\n

The series of lies told by Digwa minutes after he had fatally stabbed the university student have been exposed in the footage released for the first time on Friday.<\/p>\n

In the police footage, Digwa tells officers that Nowak obtained his bloody wounds either from a \u201cpunch\u201d or because he \u201cfell over\u201d while climbing on bins.<\/p>\n

He can be heard lying to police about being racially attacked by Nowak, who he claims was \u201cobviously drunk\u201d. He claims Nowak attacked him and pulled his turban off.<\/p>\n

Digwa was not handcuffed when he was arrested for attempted murder in the footage, though Nowak had been handcuffed by the same officers minutes before.<\/p>\n

When Digwa complains in the footage about having been \u201cracially attacked\u201d as he is arrested, an officer tells him: \u201cI know, I know, I know.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the footage, Digwa\u2019s father, Moga Singh, can be heard telling police: \u201cMy son\u2019s just been assaulted. The gentleman that\u2019s on the floor assaulted my son.\u201d<\/p>\n

Digwa then says: \u201cHe pushed my turban off my head and started grabbing my hair. So I\u2019m a Sikh, obviously, and he started grabbing my hair and dragging me around.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy brother\u2019s seen it, stopped it, and that\u2019s where he\u2019s then started stumbling around, started climbing around all these bits and bobs and stuff like that.<\/p>\n

\u201cLiterally I saw him from there and from the get go I said: look mate, you clearly are obviously drunk, I said to him just carry on with your day, and he started escalating, calling me a Paki and all that stuff.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd this isn\u2019t the first time that we\u2019ve had something like this happen here. We\u2019ve lived here since I was four and five and I\u2019ve had it recently.\u201d<\/p>\n

When police ask him to move, he says: \u201cDo you mind if we turn the flashes off, sorry? Can we move over here then so it\u2019s not in my eyes?\u201d<\/p>\n

They move again and Digwa continues: \u201cThis isn\u2019t the first time we\u2019ve had altercations. Not even altercations, we\u2019ve had people racially attack us during the morning.\u201d<\/p>\n

An officer asks: \u201cDo you know how he\u2019s got that wound then?\u201d and Digwa responds: \u201cWhat wound, sorry?\u201d<\/p>\n

The officer says: \u201cWell you said he\u2019s got blood on him, how\u2019s he \u2026 how\u2019s he \u2026?\u201d<\/p>\n

Digwa replies: \u201cIt must have been when we punched him. Must have been when we punched him. But he did fall over here, so he was climbing all over these bins and stuff like that and then he\u2019s fell over and landed on to that car.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the police officer finally arrests Digwa, the murderer pleads: \u201cWhat do you mean \u2018attempted murder\u2019? Why am I getting arrested?\u201d<\/p>\n

The arresting police officer says Digwa has \u201chis side of the story\u201d but that the police don\u2019t know what has happened so they need to find out. The officer adds: \u201cI\u2019m not saying you\u2019ve done anything, mate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Digwa says: \u201cMate, I\u2019ve been racially attacked.\u201d To which the officer responds: \u201cI know, I know, I know.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the judge, William Mousley KC, sentenced Digwa, he told him: \u201cI am sure that Henry had said nothing racist. You are the only person to make that claim and it is completely at odds with his previous character.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was put forward by the prosecution that footage from before the police arrived showed Digwa with his turban on his head, and it was suggested that Digwa had taken it off himself in an attempt to seem like the victim.<\/p>\n

Nowak had started recording Digwa when he saw the man carrying an eight-inch Sikh ceremonial blade. That footage has never been released publicly.<\/p>\n

Digwa\u2019s lies led to Nowak being arrested and handcuffed while he was dying. Nowak exclaimed: \u201cI can\u2019t breathe\u201d as he was handcuffed.<\/p>\n

The revelation that Nowak had been handcuffed and falsely accused of racism led to violence in Southampton, and 25 rioters were charged with violent disorder.<\/p>\n

Hampshire constabulary is under investigation by the Independent Office for Police<\/a> Conduct over the arrest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The murderer of Henry Nowak, the student whose death sparked riots in Southampton, is seen lying to police…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":659405,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-659404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=659404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/659405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}