Handcuffed while bleeding to death: the UK police scandal

Handcuffed while bleeding to death: the UK police scandal

An 18-year-old was stabbed five times. His attacker, 23, called the police and posed as the victim of a racist attack. Officers handcuffed the wounded man, who lay on the ground bleeding out, and arrested him. Minutes later, the young man died. The scene, filmed and shared on social media, has sparked outrage.

It peine in Southampton in December 2025. Henry Nowak, a Finance student at the University of Southampton, was on his way home from a night out when he crossed paths with Vickrum Digwa, a 23-year-old Sikh. Digwa, armed with a 21 cm ceremonial kirpan knife, stabbed him five times. He then called the police and told them Nowak had attacked him in a racist assault. The officers believed his story: they handcuffed Nowak, who was already seriously injured, and arrested him. In the video, the young man can be heard repeating "I can't breathe" as he struggles to breathe. No one came to his aid. He bled out and died.

The comparison with George Floyd is inevitable, but this case is even graver: the victim was innocent, the attacker was lying, and the police watched him die without intervening. Instead of protecting an injured citizen, they became accomplices to his death through omission.

The British courts have sentenced Digwa to a life sentence with a minimum term. But the police conduct remains unexamined. The authorities, who so loudly proclaim their anti-racist commitment, arrested the stabbed man instead of the stabber. The question hanging in the air: would the response have been the same if the attacker had been white and the victim Sikh?

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