There is a pattern to how certain crimes become political weapons in the UK. It begins with a real horror. It ends, reliably, somewhere that has very little to do with the dead.
Henry Nowak was 18, a first-year student in Southampton, walking home from a night out when Vikrum Digwa stabbed him five times. The footage of what came next — Nowak handcuffed on the pavement, bleeding, telling police officers he had been stabbed, telling them he couldn't breathe, his pleas being dismissed — is harrowing.
Digwa, a British-born Sikh, had told officers he was the victim of a racist attack by Nowak. The court found his account fabricated and sentenced him to life in prison, with a minimum term of 21 years. His brother, mother and father have all been charged or convicted of related offences.
