Henry Nowak’s family don’t want his death to become politicised – but it is too late for that.

The entire country has been convulsed by this killing. How could we not?

It has become politicised because it is a political issue on so many levels, not least because of political choices by the elites that led to poor Henry’s death in the first place. We can’t just look away and pretend otherwise because of one family’s bereavement and pain even though we sympathise, of course, with their terrible loss.

For the death of this innocent 18-year-old strikes deep into our society and values, not to mention entrenched race relations, the way this country is run, how front-line emergency services are trained, so many things that shape British life today and so few of them good.

At the heart of the case is the fact that the police thought Henry Nowak was a racist because they had been told he was a racist by a brown man in a turban – and they did not question this assertion, not for one second.

As they thought Henry was a racist, this also meant they did not feel required to believe the dying boy’s protestations of innocence nor offer him any form of human decency as he bled out in front of them. That is what happened. In black and white. Please, let’s not try to pretend otherwise.

The entire country has been convulsed by the killing of 18-year-old Henry Nowak, writes Jan Moir. But we can’t look away and pretend it isn’t a political issue…

There is to be an inquest in September next year, in which a coroner and a jury will try to ascertain whether any act, delay in treatment or omission by police caused or contributed to Henry’s death.

The trial heard that officers ignored his pleas that he had been stabbed – basic police training suggests that the situation should have changed instantly when they heard those words – and that as he lost consciousness an officer began CPR, not realising that the teenager had a serious stab wound to the chest. It was dark, it was a chaotic crime scene and at the centre of it was the true culprit; a murderer cold-bloodedly lying about his actions, thereby executing a double dose of evil.

Vickrum Digwa, from Southampton’s Sikh community, told police it was Nowak who attacked him. He was found guilty and given a life sentence with a minimum term of 21 years, meaning he will be around 44 when he eventually gets out of jail. Still enough time left to live a life, become a father, smell the roses and grow old. All opportunities denied to the first year accounting and finance student Henry.

Even more depressing were the reactions and national rows following the trial and the verdict. Can’t this country ever grow up?

Once more we have been plunged into the self-harming world of liberal groupthink, which is what got us here in the first place. No one is allowed to be appalled or think this is an absolutely blinding example of two-tier policing straight from the woke handbook, not to mention being the manifestation of a crippled society where only someone in the majority racial group can ever be the perpetrator of racism.

If you think like that, the Lefty logic goes, you might as well wear a ‘White Lives Matter’ badge and goose-step along with the rest of the plank-headed morons on the next far-Right anti-immigration march in London. I see myself as one of the concerned, centre-ground citizens who can see very clearly what is going on but are smeared as being ‘far-Fight’ or ‘racist’ for raising even a batsqueak of criticism. And I don’t think I am alone.

At Westminster, Keir Starmer whirred into action with his usual, achingly contrived I’m-so-decent stance; a lawyerly approach in which no feathers must be ruffled, no one is accused of anything and two-tier policing is a figment of twisted Reform party imagination. He even went to the trouble of accusing Elon Musk of trying to ‘whip up division’, after the South African tech billionaire said accusations of racism in the UK are now treated ‘worse than rape or murder’. Good God, I am no fan of weirdo Musk and his global overlord ambitions, but hasn’t he got a point? A very good point, at that.

Enter Nigel Farage – nostrils flaring, quite excited – with his view that two-tier policing is very much a reality and no wonder the whole country is going to the dogs. Farage always takes things too far, but again – doesn’t he have a point?

And the point is that for nearly three decades, certainly since the 1999 Macpherson Report decreed that the Metropolitan Police was institutionally racist, this country has been a one-way street in which only those in a minority can be a victim of racism.

When Vickrum Digwa, from Southampton’s Sikh community, told police it was Nowak who attacked him, he knew his words would be believed over a white boy’s, argues our columnist

Since Digwa was arrested until his incarceration this week, his family have only been able to think of themselves, including his mother (above) who hid the murder weapon

When Digwa told his disgusting lies to the police, did he do so safe in the comforting knowledge that they would accept his version of events over the begging words of a stricken white boy? I think he absolutely did. Sue me.

You only have to look at the rape gangs, the grooming gangs, the Nottingham killer, the Southport killer and the Manchester Arena bombing to see what is happening. All of this violence, all these sickening, murderous actions featured systemic procedural failures stemming from anxieties around race which directly hindered security and emergency responses. Stepping into this moral maze, Digwa saw his chance. And he took it, sealing Henry’s death warrant.

Elsewhere in recent times there have been lies told in trying to prevent Maccabi fans attend a football match in Birmingham, and in London, the shameless progression of pro-Palestinian hate marches allowed to chant about the killing of Jews.

This is where liberal groupthink gets us. The fashionable Left have a curated list of who is and who is not a victim, along with a mindset which shuts down any scrutiny of their pet causes in case it reveals unpalatable truths or does not fit their agenda.

It is heartbreaking that all of this has landed at the door of the Nowak family. And upon the Sikh community, who have been entrenched in Britain for around 75 years and are one of the most successful and well-integrated groups in the UK. They have not hesitated in expressing their support for Henry Nowak and his family. ‘We hope it never happens to anyone again,’ community leaders in Southampton said.

And while the grieving Nowak family have behaved with decency and dignity at all times, the Digwa family have taken a different approach. Vickrum Digwa’s grandmother defended his mother, who hid her son’s bloodied murder weapon in her home. ‘It is what any mother would do,’ she told the Daily Mail.

No, it is not. Absolutely not. And it was his brother who called the police, claiming that Digwa had been assaulted in the first place.

Since the murderer was arrested until his incarceration this week, his family have only been able to think of themselves and their suffering. Their lack of condolences and compassion to the Nowak family has not gone unnoticed. They represent only themselves, of course, not the Sikh community.

Yet the sickening thing remains that Vickrum Digwa lived cosseted by a society where he thought he could get away with his lies. And he almost did.