UK police have released shocking bodycam footage showing the final moments of 18-year-old student Henry Nowak, who was handcuffed as he bled to death on a street in Southampton last December. Nowak was stabbed five times with an eight-inch ceremonial blade by 23-year-old Vickrum Digwa, a Sikh man who claimed the teen had shouted racist abuse and knocked his turban off.
The highly distressing three-minute video, released by Hampshire Police late Monday night, shows officers arriving at the scene at 11.37pm on December 3. Nowak can be heard pleading “I can’t breathe” as a man holds him on the ground, telling officers the teen had fallen from a fence.
“He’s jumped over these fences and stuff like that,” Digwa tells the officer. “What’s your name, mate?” the officer asks Nowak, who mumbles weakly. “Has anyone been hurt other than him?” the officer then asks. “Yeah, me,” Digwa claims. “He’s grabbed my brother, he’s took my turban off, started grabbing my hair and stuff like that … I’ve got swelling eye, little bruising.”
Officers grab Nowak and drag him across the driveway. “I’ve been stabbed. I’ve been stabbed,” Nowak pleads repeatedly. “I can’t breathe.” “Right, what’s happened to you?” the officer asks. “I’ve been stabbed,” Nowak repeats. “You’ve been stabbed? Whereabouts? I don’t think you have, mate,” the officer says.
Police then roll Nowak onto his stomach and handcuff him behind his back as the teen desperately cries “I can’t breathe”. “Put the hand in the cuff, mate,” the officer says, as Nowak gasps for air. “Where do you think you’ve been stabbed? In the face?” a female officer says. “He hasn’t been stabbed,” one of the Digwas says. “I know, but we have to check, don’t we?” the female officer says. “Please, brother, I can’t breathe,” Nowak says — his final words.
At this point Nowak appears to lose consciousness. The male officer reads the unresponsive teen his rights: “At the moment you are under arrest, that’s for assault, so you do not have to say anything that may harm your defence … anything you do say may be given in evidence, all right?” he says. “He’s going to be sick, I think.”
The three officers finally realise Nowak needs medical attention. “Yeah, um we’ve got this male, he’s been beat up. Are we able to get an ambulance, please?” a female officer says over the radio. A second female officer examines Nowak and notes “his pupils aren’t even reacting”, before the video ends. Officers belatedly attempted to administer first aid, but Nowak was pronounced dead at 12.37am.
Zia Yusuf, Reform UK’s Shadow Home Secretary, called the footage “horrific”. “The last words Henry heard as he bled out were his rights having been arrested,” Yusuf wrote on X. “The police handcuffed him AFTER he told them he’d been stabbed. Even if they heard the accusation of racist comments at the time, racist comments present no lethal threat to life. Being stabbed clearly does. My heart goes out to Henry’s family.”
Digwa has been jailed for life with a minimum of 21 years after being found guilty of murder and carrying a knife in public. His mother, Kiran Kaur, 53, was convicted of assisting an offender after hiding the murder weapon. The case has sparked widespread outrage and raised questions about anti-racism initiatives and religious exemption laws allowing Sikhs to carry ceremonial knives.
Hampshire Police have issued a formal apology, with an independent review underway. In a victim impact statement, Nowak’s mother Lucy Ross described the pain as “beyond anything I knew existed”. His father Mark said he would be haunted forever, branding the treatment of his son as “degrading” and “inhumane”. “Henry did not die with dignity. He did not die with the care he deserved. He lost consciousness before anyone believed him.”
