A murder exploited: Britain’s George Floyd moment that wasn’t
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What happened to Henry Novak and why is his death compared to George Floyd?
The Economist.
Hello and welcome to the intelligence from the economist. I'm Jason Palmer. Today on the show How NATO is preparing for Life Without America What is lost when everyone skips TV show intros?
But first
Right, let's get you out of there, shall we?
A content warning here, you're about to hear some of the last words of Henry Novak, an eighteen year old student. A police officer is speaking to him shortly after he was stabbed in the English city of Southampton.
You've been stabbed, whereabouts? Yeah.
The police handcuff Henry and initially ignore his pleas.
And
The last thing you can hear him say on the recording is, please, brother, I can't breathe.
Three rubber on top three.
For many people, those words will spark a grim memory from six years ago. In Britain, one party, one man wants to use Mr. Novak's death to make more of that echo.
At the moment you are under arrest and that's for assault, so you do not have to say anything in Mayham and Defence if you do not make your own question.
Henry died on the third of December last year, but the police body cam footage of his final moments has only just been released after the conclusion of his murderer's trial. Hugo Jai is a British political correspondent for The Economist. Some figures on the British right have compared the way he was treated by police to the death of George Floyd, which sparked the Black Lives Matter movement in twenty twenty. The police have apologised for the way that Henry was treated as he was dying, but nonetheless the case has attracted national attention and become a major political talking point this week.
More than just a political talking point though, this has reached the streets.
That's right. On Tuesday night, protests led by the far right agitator Tommy Robinson in Southampton started peacefully but ended with violence. A number of protesters were arrested for attacking riot police and there are fears that these protests could continue in the coming days. Let's wind back a little bit just to understand what
exactly happened to Henry.
So Henry was walking home from the pub after a night out when he encountered Vikram Digwa. The two men became involved in some sort of altercation. Digwer, who is Sikh and carries a ceremonial dagger that some Sikhs use as a sign of their faith, then pulled the weapon out of its sheath and used it to stab Henry multiple times. His brother then called the police and said that they had been the victims of a racist attack, which wasn't true, and the police, therefore, when they arrived, treated Henry as the perpetrator. And in the footage you can hear Vikram Digwa claiming that he was the victim, that he'd been attacked and talking about his supposed injuries.
How did Nigel Farage’s tone shift from “colour‑blind” to race‑baiting on this case?
Yeah me. I grabbed my brother, he's took my turban off, so I grabbed my head. Are you injured? Yeah, yeah, I've got swollen eye a little bit. Alright, just step back a little bit for me. Someone flagged these though.
For at least the first few minutes of this, the police accepted Digwa's account and treated Novak as the suspect, though the judge in the case clarified in his sentence and remarks he was sure that Henry had not in fact said anything racist or attacked Digwa in the way that the murderer initially claimed. Digwar has now been sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of twenty one years after being convicted of murder. And why has this killing in particular become such a political flashpoint? Well, it touches on very sensitive issues around race and policing because the way that Digwa tried and failed to avoid justice was to say that he was the victim of a specifically racist attack. Reform UK, the right-wing populist party that's currently leading in the polls, says that this is an example of what it calls two-tier policing.
It points to a number of genuinely concerning examples in the past where it appears Is that the crimes committed by people from ethnic minorities have been downplayed out of misplaced fears of inflaming racial sensitivities? The most famous of these is the grooming gang scandal, which saw large groups of mostly Pakistani men sexually abuse mostly white young girls, and that the authorities turned a blind eye to for many years.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What happened to Henry Novak and why is his death compared to George Floyd?
0:03–3:24
2
How did Nigel Farage’s tone shift from “colour‑blind” to race‑baiting on this case?
3:24–6:10
3
Is there evidence of a “two‑tier” policing system in Britain?
6:10–9:31
4
Why are Reform UK’s voters reacting strongly to the Novak case?
9:31–12:38
5
How is NATO preparing for a future without America (Plan B)?
12:38–15:25
6
What are the main options for a post‑US NATO structure?
15:25–18:02
7
Why does skipping TV title sequences matter for storytelling?
18:02–20:59
8
What does Henry Novak’s father want the public to take away from his son’s death?
20:59–23:52