Thanks to Judge, Now We Know the Truth About So-Called Racist Language Henry Nowak Used Before Being Stabbed to Death by Sikh
The judge who sentenced a British killer to prison on Monday did more than put a murderer behind bars.
He laid out the events surrounding the December death of 18-year-old Henry Nowak in the United Kingdom in a coherent format.
He also identified the allegedly “racist” language the young man is accused of using — while making it clear he thought the killer was lying about literally everything that happened that night.
In sentencing remarks delivered from the bench while addressing the defendant, 23-year-old Vickrum Digwa, Judge William Mousely described how Nowak encountered his killer while walking home after a night out with friends in Southampton, England. (The remarks can be viewed here. They are well worth reading in their entirety.)
Describing Nowak as a “much-loved, kind, hard-working and ambitious young man,” Mousely said the Southampton University student had been drinking, but was not drunk.
“In Belmont Road, you and Henry passed each other. You claimed he deliberately barged into you. I am sure that was one of the many lies you have told and repeated since it happened,” Mousely said.
Mousely noted that Nowak was recording on his phone at the time, and that he asked Digwa — “perhaps cheekily” — if he was a “bad man.” Digwa responded that he was a “bad man” and took Nowak’s phone from him, Mousely said.
To understand what happened next, it’s crucial to know that Digwa is a Sikh — a member of a religion that has its roots in northern India and requires its male members to be armed with a knife at all times, as well as to wear a turban while in public. While for many Sikhs in the U.K., the knife requirement is satisfied by a man wearing a small blade around his neck, Digwa chose to also carry a large dagger in a sheath on his belt.
Nowak likely attempted to get his phone back, Mousely said. In the ensuing struggle, Digwa’s turban was likely knocked from his head — enraging him.
“You drew the dagger from its sheath and, as the jury was sure, you deliberately stabbed Henry in the chest with it,” Mousely said.
The blade pierced the skin, nicked a lung, and “cut an important vein behind the collarbone,” Mousely said. That wound alone would have been fatal.
“In simple terms, he would not have survived, however quickly he received first aid, CPR, or expert medical treatment,” Mousely said.
But Digwa wasn’t done yet. He also stabbed Nowak twice in the upper leg and once in the lower abdomen/groin area, Mousely said. Nowak also had a slash wound on his face that might have been unintentional.
“You, by contrast, had little, if any, injury. You told the attending police that you had a small bruise and swelling to your eye from a punch but it is not obvious on body-worn footage taken then and there has been no independent evidence given in the trial of any injury at all to you.”
Digwa’s brother, Gurpreet, then arrived on the scene, according to Mousely’s remarks — and that’s where the claim of allegedly “racist” language arose. Digwa told his brother that Nowak had called him a “Paki.”
It’s a term that might be unfamiliar to most Americans, but “Paki” — for “Pakistan” — is used as a racial slur in the U.K. (and Ireland) — to describe South Asians.
And Mousely didn’t believe it for a minute.
“I am sure that Harry said nothing racist,” he said. “You are the only person to make that claim and it is completely at odds with his previous character.”
Vikrum Digwa lied in court, claiming that the late Henry called him ‘Paki’. He told this lie when Henry was no longer alive to confirm or deny it.
Rope for Vikrum— Harman Singh Kapoor (@kingkapoor72) June 2, 2026
When police officers arrived, Digwa kept up the act and failed to tell the police or even his own father that he’d stabbed Nowak. (Digwa’s father can be seen in bodycam footage, apparently trying to help Nowak, unaware of his actual wound.)
Mousely’s remarks also offered at least some defense of the police officers involved — who have come under scathing criticism for handcuffing a clearly helpless man even after he told them repeatedly that he’d been stabbed.
While the officers could see blood, Mousely said, they could have assumed it was coming from the wound on his face, which was clearly not life-threatening.
“Henry was complaining that he had been stabbed and was struggling to breathe but that would not have necessarily told the officers how serious the situation had become. It is the experience of the criminal courts that sometimes, someone arrested and handcuffed will feign injury in the hope they may be released,” Mousely said. “These police officers were faced with having to make quick decisions in pressurised circumstances about the best way to act.”
Well, the decisions they made were pretty clearly the wrong ones. Even if no emergency medical treatment could have saved Henry Nowak’s life, he didn’t have to die on his face, with his hands cuffed behind his back, while an officer of the law read him his rights after placing him under arrest for “racist” assault.
But even worse was Digwa’s apparently implicit assumption that claiming Nowak had called him a “Paki” could somehow excuse a knife attack that ended a young man’s life.
It’s an indication of how sick the U.K.’s society has become that he would even offer the excuse. (It’s a race-card sickness from which the United States is far from immune. The trial of the black teen accused of murdering a white teenager at a Frisco, Texas, track meet last year is likely to be a case in point.)
The jury rejected Digwa’s self-defense story (including the racism claim) when they convicted him of murder.
The judge then went further during sentencing by directly calling out the racism lie and using it to make the sentence harsher.
GOOD.
RIP Henry. 💔 🕊️ https://t.co/4hXVJZRVfv
— JJ🕊️ (@jesseyjay94) June 2, 2026
In Digwa’s case, the judge specifically cited the accusation of racism in determining Digwa’s prison sentence. In the U.K., Mousely said, the sentence for murder is life imprisonment, but a parole board can grant freedom after 15 years or the minimum period specified by the judge.
Mousely made that minimum period 21 years instead of 15, in part because of Digwa’s “racism” lie.
“[M]ental suffering was inflicted on Henry once he lay dying from his injuries, by your attitude towards him of which he would have been aware and, separately, by your lies which had resulted in a young adult of good character being arrested and handcuffed,” Mousely said.
None of that excuses the actions of the police officers involved. None of that is going to help Nowak’s family now or in the years to come, as his death marks a permanent loss. (His father’s statement outside court on Monday was particularly poignant.)
But it does answer some questions about a case that should be a turning point for the law in the United Kingdom.
And it should be a lesson for the United States, too.
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