How did the police let Henry Nowak die?

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0:32This is a Global Player original podcast. A kid was left to die and handcuffed as he was dying. What's happened to you, all right? Stop it, mate. Just start. I don't think you have, mate. It is clear that this is one of the worst bits of policing you're ever likely to see. The broader charge from Farage. There is this two-tier anti-white policing. If you actually look at the cold hard facts, you're twice as more likely to be arrested if you're black. The police in this country have a sacred duty, to police without fear or favour. Everyone in this country is equal before the law. It is the promise upon which our whole justice system rests, and the equality of every citizen is the foundation on which the openness, tolerance and generosity of this country rests.

1:25That is Shabana Mahmood, the Home Secretary. commenting on the police behaviour in the wake of the murder of Henry Novak, a young 18-year-old student on his way home from a night out. It is really a horrifying story of what happened in so many different respects. But how on earth did the police let Henry Novak die in the way that he did? Welcome to the News Agents.

1:58The News Agents. It's John. It's Maitlis. And we're going to talk to you today about Henry Novak, an 18-year-old finance student, a young kid, a young man who was full of life and joy and had his life ahead of him, who was killed as he walked home from a night out. And this is one of the, frankly, most upsetting stories I think that we've covered on this show. and it's certainly one of the most upsetting stories that I've come across for a long time. Because as Henry was lying, dying as it turns out, unable to breathe, having been stabbed, police who arrived at the scene did not help him, did not go to his aid.

2:48They handcuffed him because the perpetrator of his stabbing, of his murder, told the police that he, a young Sikh man, had been racially abused. What went through the minds of the police as they looked at this 18-year-old kid lying on the ground and told him that he had not been stabbed when he was trying to tell them that he was fighting for his life, that he couldn't breathe? We're going to play you a very short excerpt from the body cam that has now been released with the blessing, we should say, of Henry Novak's family. It is distressing. What's happened to you, all right? I've been stabbed.

3:39You've been stabbed? Whereabouts? I don't think you have, mate.

3:49Hand.

3:53Put the hand in the cuff, mate. It really is the most horrendous example of policing gone wrong, where someone has says, I've been stabbed. And the cop says, I don't believe you. I don't think you have, mate. It's hard to imagine anything worse than that. And it comes after the call, as you say, Emily, made by the murderer's brother saying that we are the victims. We have been the victims of a racist attack. We had our turbans knocked off with Sikh and the P word was used. And that was all a kind of politicisation of something where the absolute reverse was true. And the question that is now being raised is, you know, was this somehow a failure of policing because of a fear of doing the wrong thing, a fear of being labelled racist?

4:47Or even worse, was it an example of two tier policing? outside the court after Vikram Dighwar was convicted of the murder we heard from Henry Novak's father Mark and it was a really heartfelt address that he gave to the public of their pain and their anguish but also of their need and desire for this not to be politicized further to sow further division. Let's have a listen. In fact, Henry told officers that he could not breathe nine times. He told them he had been stabbed four times. The response from one officer was, I don't think you have, mate. The police have said they were misled by the murderer and that the scene when they arrived was complex.

5:45Unfortunately, it seems to us the truth is much simpler. The police were told by our son himself and by a member of the public who called 999 that they heard someone shout that they had been stabbed. But the police did not believe them. Henry was pulled across the gravel, his hands forced behind his back and he was placed in handcuffs. Instead of being treated as a dying victim, police formally arrested Henry for assault and read him his rights. That was the last thing he heard. Henry did not die with dignity. He did not die with the care he deserved. He lost consciousness before anyone believed him.

6:34But today matters. Today, Henry was believed. The truth has been recognised. Today justice in the eyes of the law has been served. But justice alone is not enough. We want to use Henry's heartbreaking story to make change for the better. We do not want his death to be used to create further division, hatred or tension. We want his story to make our streets safer for everyone. And so there you have Mark Novak making it clear that the focus should be on their son who was murdered and remembering him. And, of course, the lessons to be learned about the policing of it, but it not to become a political football.

7:28Yeah, and within 12 hours of his father making that very dignified call on the public to understand who was to blame for his son's murder, Nigel Farage had stepped in front of a microphone to say the rights and privileges of white people matter less than those of minorities. Now, my guess is that some people will see what has gone on, see what happened on that night in Southampton and been so horrified that they will have asked themselves whether there was something cultural, whether there was some kind of unspoken blueprint in our policing, which says, think about racism the whole time. Think about minorities the whole time.

8:20This is a police force who in the last couple of years have faced allegations of being not just racist, but homophobic, misogynist. So is there something that makes the police assume that the young white man was to blame rather than the two Sikh men beside him? and yet the fact that Farage has barely allowed the father's words to sink in before really finding what looks like a political vacuum to exploit I think will make a lot of people feel quite ill actually because what seems to be happening already called out we should say by Kemi Badenock, who's accused Farage of whipping up anger and division.

9:10But what seems to be happening around this horrendous human tragedy is the makings potentially of another Southport. Tommy Robinson, far-right leader, calling on people to take to the streets in Southampton to protest. What are they protesting? They're not protesting a young boy's death. They are not protesting a young boy who was stabbed to death on the streets beside his university. They seem to be protesting whatever Tommy Robinson thinks they should be protesting right now, which is questions around race. So there is no doubt in my mind, listening to that body cam footage, what the police said, the way the police behaved, the actions of the murderer and his brother, that something horribly bad went wrong.

10:09Catastrophic. Catastrophic. Absolutely bloody awful and just unbearable. I don't know how Mark Novak and the rest of the family will live with that knowledge of what happened on the street in Southampton that night. But to go from that to make the sweeping generalisation that there is now a two tier policing in this country and it is anti white. given the evidence that people have seen over successive years just seems to me a stretch and teetering on the irresponsible further making more difficult the job of being a police officer in this country who are trying to keep order in the best way they can and in the last few minutes I should say we're recording this at 5 to 2.

11:05The Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, has made a statement in the Commons and warned that police officers completely unrelated to this case are already receiving death threats so serious that they have had to move house. A police officer unrelated to this case has been misidentified online and subjected to death threats. He has been forced to relocate to protect himself and his family. Misinformation and inflammatory commentary is making a dreadful situation even worse. We must all together condemn it. So that was Shibana Mahmood in the Commons a few moments ago. Let us speak now to our very own crime agent, Andy Hughes.

11:50Andy, no sooner had Mark Novak, Henry's dad, made that incredibly powerful, heartfelt appeal last night, not to turn this into more tension, more hate, than we saw Nigel Farage, a reform leader, saying the rights and privileges of white people matter less than those of minorities. And my guess is that there will be a lot of people who actually don't necessarily see themselves as Farage-isters or reformists saying, is that true? Is that happening? That feels like exactly what happened on the night of Henry's death. Well, I think the first thing I'd like to say is when you look at these extremely visceral images of the body worn footage, it is clear that this is one of the worst bits of policing you're ever likely to see.

12:48And that's exactly what I'm hearing from several police officers I've been speaking to about this. The idea that a kid was lying there on the floor after being stabbed, dying, and then two police officers rush over to him. He tells them that he's been stabbed. And then they say, I don't think you have, mate. And then after that, they handcuff him. Well, for starters, that goes against everything police are trained to do. the police officers if if they are told that I've been stabbed the first thing they should do is that they need to check for injuries and save life the second thing is if someone's not presenting any threat at all then they shouldn't really be handcuffing the uh the suspect and the idea that the last thing he heard was the rights being read to him is just sickening that's actually usually reserved for terrorists.

13:51I know of one occasion back in the 2017 Westminster attack where the attacker was lying on the floor dying and one of the armed officers actually rushed over to him and read him his rights because and I quote I wanted him to hear the full force of the law before he died and the idea that poor Henry had that same experience is again just sickening. Are we any closer then, Andy, to understanding what happened in this case that would have led the police to say, oh, I don't think you have been, mate. You know, a kid who's lying there on the ground saying, I can't breathe. I've been stabbed. Why would the police assume that he wasn't telling the truth?

14:35One of the big problems I'm being told is that a lot of these responding officers are quite junior, have less than five years experience. And some of the weak ones, I'm told, may, because they're being told constantly that they are institutionally racist, they may subconsciously do everything they can to avoid being called racist. Now, this may have happened in this case, but the IOPC will have to see where that goes. Well, let me pick up on that, because I think that is the broader charge that, you know, Emily referred to from Farage at the start of this interview. is it possible that we can all agree that this was a terrible piece of policing but can we generalize from that and say that there is this two-tier anti-white policing in this country well absolutely not so my phone was lighting up at around 8 30 this morning from several police officers who were frankly totally pissed off at what nigel farage had said he said that police officers, all police officers effectively, are told to treat people differently based on their ethnicity.

15:46I'm sorry, that's absolute nonsense. In fact, they're told the opposite. They're told to deal with people without fear or favour. Now, clearly in this case, it seems as though that wasn't followed, right? However, the big fear here is that what Nigel Farage said could stoke hatred not only against minority communities but also against the police. and this is not based on fact. If you actually look at the cold hard facts, you're twice as more likely to be arrested if you're black. You're four times more likely to be stopped in search if you're black. So what he's saying is not based in fact, and as sure as night follows day, Tommy Robinson has asked his supporters to go to Southampton tonight.

16:34So the potential of unrest, even though as you say the statistics would suggest that the the greater problem in british society is that if you're black you're more likely yeah to be arrested and you can think of all the cases of the you know the two athletes who were stopped in their bmw or the girl in hackney who was strip searched when she was still a juvenile at a police station those examples are legion but I suppose it is very unusual that what has happened in this case, it does seem to be that a Sikh person or the brother of the Sikh person, the brother of the murderer was playing the race card.

17:11Yeah. And I think this comes down to from all the police officers I've spoken to, they are horrified by what they saw in that body cam footage. They seem to come to the conclusion that these were very junior officers who are terrified of being labelled racist because police officers throughout history have been labelled as institutionally racist. But a more senior officer would just do what they're trained to do. It's very clear that these officers did not do what they were trained to do. That sounds like a fundamental problem, Andy. if the junior ones are the ones getting sent out and they're the ones that are most conscious of the labels that have surrounded them about whether they're homophobic or whether they're racist or whether they're misogynist, all part of investigations into why the Met isn't working.

18:00And the older, more experienced officers are retiring or just don't want to go anywhere near the front line now. I mean, that is a serious problem for the whole country, isn't it? It is. It's right to say that it was Hampshire police, this case, but the Met and other forces are having real trouble recruiting people. And when they are recruited, they're losing them fast. I was told by a senior detective today that it's very rare that people are staying past their five years now because policing is already a very difficult job. There's this really striking stat that if you're a frontline police officer, you have more than 500 traumatic events throughout your life.

18:40If you're a normal person, you'll be lucky to have less than five, right? So that's the scale of difference. And I've been on these ride-alongs several times with these cops who are responding to these incredibly traumatic incidents. It is one of the most difficult jobs in the world, I would say. They are constantly operating in total chaos. These situations that they turn up to, it's so chaotic and they are trained to deal with it with a level head. It's very clear from this Henry Novak case that that wasn't done. Andy, answer me this question. I mean, wasn't it ever thus, that police officers are having to go and dealing with the most terrible things, whether it's people's mental health or whether it be a domestic murder or whatever it happens to be, that is what the job entails.

19:31Yes. Has it got worse? Well, it's got worse in the sense that the public's perception of the police is so much worse now policing is deeply unpopular everywhere they go they find people being hostile towards them imagine doing that your job every day turning up and everyone victims uh suspects everyone is hostile to you that's what they have to deal with every day so that just seeps in to their mentality and a lot of them will hate going to work because of this public perception that people have of them. And frankly, a lot of the police officers I've spoken to this morning tell me that comments that Nigel Farge made this morning do not help.

20:13If you're Henry Novak's family, you're just thinking, frankly, we do need to get to the bottom of whatever happened. And, you know, the sympathy for the officers or for the mistake or for the culture is frankly secondary. because a kid was left to die and handcuffed as he was dying and trying to explain what had happened to him. And those parents will have to live with that and those mistakes the rest of their lives. And yet they are the ones calling for no division. And along comes Nigel Farage this morning. Andy Hughes, thanks. Thanks so much. In a moment, we're going to be speaking to the president in exile of Belarus, Svetlana Tsikhanouskaya, who is here.

21:03She's about to go and see the prime minister, in fact, to make the case for Belarus and why it needs the support of democratic countries around Europe.

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23:07Well, joining us now is Svetlana Tsikanuskaya, who is the president in exile of Belarus. Svetlana, a lot of people will not know your full story of how you came to be living outside the country of the election that you fought, that you won. But they see you here today because you're going to be visiting Keir Starmer. You're off to Downing Street. Why? So first of all, maybe a couple of words about my beloved country, Belarus. Maybe some of your viewers can remember 2020 when our people stood against dictatorship and I was a presidential candidate and won elections. But the regime of Lukashenko unleashed the most brutal terror in our country after uprising of people and forced me to leave the country.

24:03And for these six years already, about half a million of Belarusians had to flee Belarus because of repressions. You stood against him because your husband was jailed, had been imprisoned. And Lukashenko didn't think you were a threat. Absolutely. You know, he always underestimated the role of women. He always said our constitution is not for women. What women can do in Belarus, just nothing. Definitely he underestimated women, but also he underestimated, you know, intention of Belarusian people for changes. Because we really want to get rid of dictatorship. We want our country to be democratic, to be European, and to get rid of Russia's influence on Belarus.

24:45But he thinks he won that election. you know he yeah he thinks that he's the only governor of belarus he owns belarus because he's been there for three decades for three decades more than three decades yeah and what was the influence of vladimir putin in that election was vladimir putin terrified that he was going to lose a strategic ally and therefore it was putin telling lukashenko you've got to stop this look putin and lukashenko they have like symbiotic friendship they need each other they use each other and definitely in 2020 putin saved lukashenko politically and you know economically he supported him and of course you know especially after russia started the war against ukraine and lukashenko gave our land our infrastructure for launching first missiles to Ukraine, Belarus became, Lukashenko became war criminal, the same as Putin.

25:50So now they are fully supporting each other. You know, Lukashenko is ready to provide our country again for possible escalation in the future. Are Belarusian soldiers serving in Ukraine with Russia? Is there conscription at all in your country? Look, first of all, we have to distinguish Belarusian regime from Belarusian people. Belarusian people are fully on the side of Ukraine. We really want Ukraine to win because on the outcome of the war in Ukraine, destiny of our country depends a lot. Many military volunteers went to fight to Ukraine on Ukrainian side. Many died. And in 2022, many Belarusian partisans, you know, disrupted railways, for example, to stop Russian equipment, you know, going to Ukraine.

26:41So we, with all our heart, we We want to help Ukrainians to win this war. We cannot do a lot because we are a nation which state was seized by a dictator, a dictator who is serving to Russia's interests, who is ready to sacrifice our independency, our sovereignty, just to stay in power. But Belgian people want to help. So just let me go back to 2020. And I remember vividly the massive protests on the streets, the huge numbers of people who came out to protest against the dictator in your country. Where is the opposition now? Has everyone fled? Is there still a simmering discontent in the country or is all the protest outside the country now?

27:31Look, for people living in democratic countries, it's very difficult to imagine how dictatorship works, because we are not divided into opposition and government. All the people want changes. You know, Lukashenko, for these 30 years, he managed to build the system that serves to him personally, especially military, you know, services who are protecting them, but people want changes. So we cannot say that opposition fled or opposition stayed in Belarus. You know, we all as nation, we are in opposition to this dictatorship. So those who fled the country, we managed to build alternative institutions in exile.

28:11You know that after 2020, all free media that were inside the country, they were ruined, liquidated, declared as extremists, but they managed to restore their broadcasting from abroad. People in Belarus live under constant repression. Just as difficult to imagine, six years in a row, every day people are detained for their anti-regime, pro-Ukrainian, pro-European or anti-Russian position. So we live like in Gulag, like in Stalin's time. So just, of course, it's impossible in such a situation to go to the streets because it will be new and new victims, new killed people by this regime. But for these six years, Lukashenko didn't manage to suppress the will in the Belarusian people to change our country.

28:57So this is like the real opposition to dictatorship. We managed to preserve our civil society. We managed to preserve our media. And we, like, honestly speaking, we rediscovered Belarus to the world. Because before, Belarus was absolutely in gray zone. Nobody knew what is Belarus about and looked on our country through Russian prism, like we are Russian appendix backyard. And now we show to the world that we are not the same as regime. We want changes. We want to return to European family of nations where we historically belong. And I'm really so grateful to our partners, Democratic World, that they understand this.

29:38They don't recognize Lukashenko as a legitimate leader. They keep him in, they conduct this policy of non-recognition. Of course, I'm grateful to UK for joining this policy. Not everyone has made the Belarusians in exile feel so welcome. Lukashenko has a firm friend and fan in Donald Trump still. I think it's not the case because I'm really grateful to President Trump administration for these efforts to release political prisoners. A year ago, we had about 1 ,300 political prisoners in Belarus. Thanks to diplomatic efforts of the USA, but what is not less important, thanks to strong and principled position of European Union, sanction policy, policy of non-recognition, it gave its effect.