Allegations of Two-Tier Policing in Southampton, and The Wider Context of Fairness in Law Enforcement

The events speak for themselves, having been clearly documented on bodycam footage and CCTV.  Henry Nowak, an 18-year-old, from Chafford Hundred in Essex and in his first year of studies at the University of Southampton, was senselessly murdered during the night of 3 December 2026. He was the first in his family to go to university. Henry’s 22-year-old assailant, Vickrum Digwa, a Nihang Sikh who lived locally and had no previous convictions, fatally stabbed Nowak as he was returning to his student accommodation after a night out in town. A casual verbal exchange between two total strangers ended abruptly and tragically when Nowak was stabbed four times by Digwa, who was carrying what was described in court as “a large Sikh dagger”, rendered lethal by a 21-cm-long blade. Digwa’s elder brother Gurpreet thereupon called 999, alleging that Vickrum had been “attacked by someone racially”, while his mother, Kiran Kaur, removed the knife and accompanying sheath and belt from the scene. Upon their arrival, seven minutes later, the police handcuffed and arrested a defenceless Nowak, who lay prostrate on the pavement, despite being informed by the victim that he had been stabbed and couldn’t breathe. The victim silently and rapidly bled into his chest, with little external evidence of blood loss, and his life was soon declared extinct. Vickrum Digwa was charged with murder on 8 December 2025. The wheels of justice moved quickly thereafter. Digwa went on trial at Southampton Crown Court on 12 May 2026, was found guilty on 28 May, and jailed for life on 1 June- to serve a minimum term of 21 years. Early indications are that the wider Sikh community has since come under the threat of retaliatory action.

The murder of Henry Nowak dominated Prime Minister’s Questions on 3 June 2026, which directly followed an evening of violence in Southampton. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage took the opportunity to refer to the “anger” on the streets of Southampton, to invoke “pure cold rage”, and to predictably condemn “two-tier policing for different ethnic groups”, only for the Prime Minister to respond by describing his comments as “unforgivable.”  In their dignified and measured response to Henry’s murder, it is noteworthy that the Nowak family “do not want his death to be used to create further division, hatred or tension.”

The tragedy in Southampton has once again renewed concerns over alleged two-tier policing in Britain. The victim was seen to have been treated harshly by the police, who initially overlooked his injuries and treated him as though he was indeed the guilty party. The Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary has since apologised publicly to the Nowak family for the actions of the police on the day, but many are still angry and not reassured by the apology. This is all in keeping with the growing perception, from either extreme of the political spectrum and increasingly from those with more centrist views, that some groups of people are aggressively policed, unfairly convicted, and disproportionately sentenced for their actions, while their opponents are given the benefit of the doubt and treated far more leniently. In other words, one set of rules for “them” and another set for “us.”

The police are expected to be impartial in their dealings with the general public. The name of Sir Robert Peel, founder of the London Metropolitan Police Force in 1829, has been linked with the nine principles of what is now referred to as policing by consent. According to one of these principles, the police are required to constantly demonstrate “absolute impartial service to law…by ready offering of individual service and friendship to all members of the public without regard to their wealth or social standing.” All newly appointed police officers in England and Wales have to swear to act with impartiality. The Equality Act 2010 also prohibits discrimination by the police in relation to specified protected characteristics, including race, and religion or belief.

The impartiality of British police, particularly the Metropolitan Police, has, however, come under unfavourable scrutiny in the past and continues to do so. Black people were disproportionately targeted on the grounds of “suspicious behaviour” during the 1970s and early 1980s under the so-called ‘sus law”, derived from Section 4 of the 1824 Vagrancy Act. Anger at the police culminated in the Brixton riots of April 1981. The sus law, an early manifestation of two-tier policing, was repealed by the 1981 Criminal Attempts Act. The 1984 Police and Criminal Evidence Act introduced stop and search, the scope of which was expanded by Section 60 of the 1994 Criminal Justice and Public Order Act.

The findings of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry were summarised in a report by Sir William Macpherson of Cluny, which was published in February 1991. Macpherson concluded that previous investigations into the murder of the Black teenager on 22 April 1993 were “marred by a combination of professional incompetence, institutional racism and a failure of leadership by senior officers.”  Institutional racism in this context was defined as “the collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture or ethnic origin.” The recommendations of the inquiry aimed “to increase trust and confidence in policing amongst minority ethnic communities.” Then began a sequence of events whereby discriminatory policing was gradually replaced by what came to be known by its detractors as “woke policing”, which was considered to protect people from ethnic minorities but at the expense of the White majority.

Today, the understanding of what is considered to be two-tier policing has undergone a 180-degree turn, as the alleged victims and perpetrators have swopped places. Today’s victims are often White people, who believe that they are neglected, marginalised, and mistreated by the police in their own motherland. This particular framing of the issue has been embraced by many disadvantaged and left-behind people, whose voices have been amplified by sympathetic moneyed persons such as Elon Musk, who has gone so far as to refer to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer as “two-tier Keir” on many occasions. Those from the far-right believe that pro-Palestine marchers and anti-racism are given undue freedom to protest, while their own protests are suppressed. The propensity of some far-right marches to turn violent and resort to attacks on the person and on property may go some way to explain any differential treatment in this respect. Campaigners for action on climate change, from the opposite side of the political spectrum, have also complained in the past about excessive policing and harsh sentencing for their disruptive actions.

 Despite widespread public perceptions to the contrary, objective evidence of two-tier policing can be hard to identify and then quantify. An HMICFRS (His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services) report on ‘An inspection into activism and impartiality in policing’ in 12 police forces in England and Wales between October and December 2023, published on 10 September 2024, thus noted a “near-total absence of any definition, guidance or judicial consideration of impartiality insofar as it relates to the policy.” On 7 August 2024, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley even went so far as to altogether dismiss any accusations of two-tier policing as “complete nonsense.”

At a time of growing hate that continues to divide our communities, law enforcement should be seen to be impartial- blind to colour, creed, and convictions. Crime, in whatever form it is committed, should be treated on its own merits, depending on the circumstances. All subjects should be equal before the law, and any punishment to be meted out must be proportionate to the severity of the crime, whoever the perpetrator may be. Peaceful protest by law-abiding citizens is an inalienable right under democratic rule, while destructive acts by violent individuals are nothing more than expressions of criminality. The police should not feel constrained to clamp down on criminals, while continuing to protect the rights of citizens to free assembly and legitimate protest. Perceptions of two-tier policing, whatever their merits or demerits, will, however, not disappear overnight as identity politics and culture wars continue to take root in our societies.

Ashis Banerjee