Up next in 10
Student Henry Nowak, 18, was handcuffed and arrested by police after Vickrum Digwa fatally stabbed him before lying about being racially abused by the teen. Mr Nowak was detained by officers in the minutes before his death after Vickrum Digwa lied and claimed he had called him a “p****” and knocked his turban off during an altercation in December. Henry, who had been stabbed four times with an 8in ceremonial knife, was arrested despite pleading with police that he could not breathe. James O'Brien is joined by Neil Basu, former Met Assistant Commissioner and former head of UK counterterrorism policing, to discuss. Listen to the full show on the all-new LBC App: https://app.af.lbc.co.uk/btnc/thenewlbcapp #jamesobrien #henrynowak #LBC #crime #uknews #news #crimenews LBC is the home of live debate around news and current affairs in the UK. Join in the conversation and listen at https://www.lbc.co.uk/ Sign up to LBC’s weekly newsletter here: https://l-bc.co/signup
Show More Show Less View Video Transcript
0:00
I've heard what the family have said
0:02
They're absolutely right. I mean, the fact that such a horrific incident
0:07
where they will be grieving beyond measure, probably for the rest of their lives
0:12
should be turned into a political moment has been the worst thing I've heard last night and today
0:17
I couldn't bring myself to come on initially. And then I was sent by your producer
0:25
Nigel Farage's emergency address. And I thought, that cannot be allowed to stand. I'm surprised no current serving chief constable has come on to address that kind of language, because it is inflammatory
0:39
It is extremist. It is divisive. It's everything the family didn't want. I'm sure the family are reacting to it as well
0:46
This is not the time for that kind of language. And as you've quite rightly said, the officers who were involved in this made what everyone can see on the body-worn camera and with hindsight, a catastrophic error of judgment
1:02
What will have happened to them in the first 24 hours is their professional standards unit will have informed the independent office of police complaints
1:10
They will have been reported and they will be being held to account. That will have been paused for the murder investigation and the trial to take place and will now be going ahead
1:19
So they will be held to account for the mistakes they've made in responding to this
1:26
And those mistakes will live with the family forever as well. It's a terrible thing
1:32
But it doesn't justify the commentary that we've heard from every politician, Nigel Farage, Chris Philp
1:39
I've heard others talking about it. Nick Thomas-Simmons, probably the only balanced view I've heard from a politician in the last 24 hours
1:48
Let's have the inquiry. let's hold the officers to account they will be expecting that they know that's happening
1:53
hampshire released the video um but we know who's responsible for this and the murderer the monster
1:59
that he is is serving the time that he absolutely deserves and his own family have said and let's
2:05
not make this in the way we making these and the actions of these police officers somehow the actions of policing as a profession We shouldn be making the actions of one Sikh boy the actions of the Sikh community And language that has been used by people like Farage
2:22
yet again, he did this following Southport, he's doing it again, he's doing it for political points
2:32
It's extreme language, it's really not going to help the situation in this society today
2:38
I mean, I follow these things quite closely, as you do, and even I've been somewhat taken aback by the new grift
2:44
that being white somehow makes you less likely to receive full and fair policing
2:50
that this phrase, two-tier policing, which is simultaneously meaningless and hideous, is gaining traction, which, of course, partly explains
2:58
why people start lobbing bricks at police officers when they turn up for the latest round of the Farage riots
3:04
Yeah, I mean, I don't really care whether you're right or left or centrist or liberal
3:09
I mean, undermining policing, the criminal justice system in this way is a ridiculous thing for a politician
3:16
who wants to govern the country, all of the country, presumably, not just the people he likes
3:21
It's a ridiculous thing to do. And he's returning to an old trope
3:24
that they've used before in terms of two-tier policing. I mean, policing gets things wrong every day
3:29
but it also gets things right every day. And as Nick Tom and Sim has said this morning
3:34
many thousands of them marching towards danger on our behalf every day
3:38
doing the best that they can, putting themselves on the line, do not need to be traduced by comments like two-tier policing
3:45
And of course, it's just factually incorrect. I was a detective for most of my career
3:49
There's absolutely no evidence of two-tier policing. If you were a black person or a brown person
3:54
or any ethnic minority in the country today, you'd be quite surprised to hear that you are currently being favoured
3:59
by the criminal justice system, including law enforcement, over white people. um the police force is 90 percent white 75 percent male it is very unlikely that in the three years
4:10
i've been retired policing for the first time in its 200 years has become anti-white i mean yes
4:17
just saying that out loud sounds ridiculous yeah until it doesn i suppose and they say it loud enough and say it um disingenuously enough and and some people will will along with it Can I ask I mean you may not be able to ask these questions but do things like who made the 999 call matter if the brother of the murderer made the call
4:37
claiming that his brother was the victim would that influence how the police responded in the
4:42
first instance? Yeah I mean this is the when I talk about cast and catastrophic errors of judgment
4:48
Any police officer going to any call has to get as much information
4:52
or intelligence as they possibly can before they arrive at the call for their own safety and for their own understanding
4:58
and to prepare themselves for what they face. What you shouldn't let that do is cloud your judgment
5:03
and give you one fixed understanding of the situation you're about to face
5:08
That does seem to be, and we can see it on the body-worn camera
5:12
and fair play to Hampshire Police for releasing that. there was a time when policing just simply would not do that and would not be
5:19
that transparent well we can see it yeah questions have got to be asked about professional curiosity
5:25
about your ability to investigate for your ability to take both sides of a story and make dynamic
5:30
decisions as it unfolds in front of you they clearly made a catastrophic error of judgment
5:35
would you expect the head of the met to say something about this i mean i it's possible
5:40
that there's an interpretation of pure cold rage that doesn't involve civil disobedience
5:45
or abuse of police officers or pogroms like the ones that we saw last time Farage responded
5:50
to a crime committed by somebody with dark skin. Would you expect the head of the Met, the commissioner
5:58
to comment on this? Because it may work to his favour. It adds to his ludicrous narrative of victimhood
6:05
I wouldn't expect the head of the Met to be commenting on a Hampshire police investigation
6:10
But no, on Farage's words, more so than on the Hampshire activities
6:15
No, the thing with being a senior police officer, as I well know from my time as a senior police officer
6:21
is taking on politicians in public, as Sir Mark Riley found out with Zach Polanski
6:27
is a DEFCON 1 moment, you know. Police officers should not be politicised
6:32
In the way that Nigel Farage comments are politicising policing Police officers themselves shouldn go out and talk about politicians comments in public Politicians should be held to account by the public who elect them
6:45
preferably at the ballot box. But police officers could describe exactly what's happening in this
6:51
case and say that, you know, and basically, but, you know, support the family's view. You know
6:57
the family's view is this is not a moment for politics. This is a moment for an investigation
7:02
and inquiry to hold poor policing to account. We've seen that many times before
7:07
I think we're getting better at that. I think policing is getting more transparent
7:12
I think policing is getting better at apologising and it's getting better at putting itself forward
7:17
to be held to account by the public it serves. And long may that be the case and long may that continue
7:23
I don't think it helps for senior police officers to come out and take out politicians
7:28
I think, unfortunately, that's why they're relying on retired police officers like me. do that. And as I said, this is the single and only interview I'm doing on this. But this is
7:39
just to say my thoughts are entirely with the family. I've dealt with a lot of grieving
7:43
victims, families, survivors. I know that it is almost impossible to say anything that will help
7:52
that family at this time. But, you know, it is possible to make their life worse. And some of
7:57
these politicians, I think, are doing precisely that. Good Lord. We're grateful for your time
8:03
And this is my final question, because prompted actually by your reflections
8:07
on how much policing has changed in the years since you joined the force and how things like the service itself releasing
8:13
the body cam footage would once have been unthinkable. Would you be confident that the IOPC investigation
8:19
gets to the absolute bottom of this? um unfortunately i think the iopc like policing itself has got a long way to go to to win back
8:30
trust and confidence and its competence and its professionalism but this this is you know probably
8:36
the latest and most high profile case it will have for a very long time i would hope that the
8:41
commissioners in charge of it are putting all of the resources uh into it that they possibly can
8:46
because what it must be more than anything uh is totally professional totally diligent and totally Swift
#news