Kemi Badenoch has responded to the Henry Nowak murd3r (Image: Getty)
She added: “We are multiracial yes, but we need to stop using race as a way of defining laws … Let’s treat everyone equally.” Vickrum Digwa, 23, was jailed for life, with a minimum of 21 years, for stabbing Henry, 18, with a ceremonial knife. And Digwa claimed he had been a victim of racist abuse. Police bodycam footage showed officers handcuffing Mr Nowak and ignoring claims he had been stabbed, with one even telling him “I don’t think you have mate”.
Mrs Badenoch told Good Morning Britain: “We need to bring back common sense. You don’t need to be trained on racism or anti-racism to have seen what Henry was experiencing and know that he needed help. You don’t need it.
“Something has gone wrong with policing, but we all need to take a good, long, hard look at ourselves. It is not just the police.
“I remember when this movement was happening, and I was saying we are creating different rules for different people. All of the people who were taking the knee about a man who died in another country should think about doing the same here.
“We need to bring back equality under the law. What Nigel Farage is doing is reinforcing the difference. I have said that we need to find what we have in common, not what separates us.
“I don’t want to hear about Black Lives Matter. I don’t want to hear about White Lives Matter. We all matter. Enough of this nonsense where we keep separating everybody and splitting people into different groups, we are descending into tribalism.
“I do not want that. It is why I say that we should be a multiracial country, not a multicultural country. Let’s have one shared culture, British culture.
“How the police treat everyone should not matter, depending on the colour of their skin, and we shouldn’t pretend that racism is something that only happens to ethnic minorities, it happens to everybody, black or white.”
Reform UK Nigel Farage warned the “rights and privileges of white people matter less than those of ethnic minorities” as anger erupted over the police handling of the Henry Nowak murd3r.
Mr Farage said victim Mr Nowak was “actually treated in a way that meant an accusation of a racial slur was treated more seriously than an act of murd3r”.
Shocking bodycam footage released by Hampshire Constabulary late on Monday night revealed the true horror of the case.
Digwa’s family can be seen surrounding Henry, telling officers “he keeps dropping” and that he “has a mouthful of blood”.
Officers then ask Digwa what happened, before asking if “anyone other than him” had been injured. Digwa burbled on about having a “swollen eye”.
They then dragged Henry, who was collapsed on the floor across the gravel, while saying “let’s get you out of there, shall we?”
The male officer then says to his colleague “can you grab his other arm?”
The 18-year-old then told officers he had been stabbed, before an officer responded: “I don’t think you have, mate.”
Henry is then placed in handcuffs while repeatedly telling them: “I can’t breathe.”
A female officer eventually asks Henry, who is in handcuffs at this point, “where do you think you’ve been stabbed?” before saying to her colleague, “we have to check, don’t we”.
She eventually called an ambulance after realising his “pupils aren’t even reacting”.
The near-three-minute footage ends with the arresting officer asking for Henry’s name, before reading him his rights.
Reform UK leader Mr Farage said: “Remember career criminal George Floyd, who died in appalling circumstances in Midwest America a few years ago.
“Remember the reaction to that and the way the police behaved? Within a few days Keir Starmer was taking the knee. Black Lives Matter exploded all over the country. Churchill’s statue was defaced, the cenotaph was vandalised.
“And yet, what has the public reaction been from our leaders and politicians, and indeed, to be frank, much of the media to this?
“Silence, absolute silence. Proof, if ever there was any, that we are living in a two-tier culture in this country where the rights and privileges of white people matter less than those of ethnic minorities.”
And Mrs Badenoch launched an attack on Mr Farage’s intervention: “We should not make this about Nigel Farage. This is about Henry Nowak, and I listened to his father, and it was absolutely heartbreaking.
“And this morning I watched that bodycam footage, and I just kept thinking, well, if that was my boy, that his last moments were spent in handcuffs, he knew he was dying and he could see the confusion his attacker, claiming that he had been a racist. It’s an awful, awful way for anyone to die.
“And I don’t think anyone, it doesn’t matter whether it’s politicians or the police or the public, the first place we need to start is what that boy had gone through and what his family is going through now.
“What Nigel Farage is saying completely misunderstands that when the case is happening, politicians – he is a politician by the way – just stop pretending that he’s not, he’s a politician like everyone else, we wait until the sentencing before we say what we think, so that we don’t impact the case. That’s why I’m here this morning.
“That case shows that something has gone very horribly wrong with policing, and I think I know why. I think that in 2020, 2021 there was a response to the George Floyd murd3rs, that is over corrected and caused a lot of problems.”
But Reform’s home affairs spokesman Zia Yusuf launched a blistering assault on Mrs Badenoch.
He said: “Kemi Badenoch and the Tories created a two-tier country in which white people are routinely discriminated against without consequence.
“They allowed two tier policing to become normal. That had a direct impact on Henry Nowak’s death.
“Now she has the nerve to go on TV and tell you not to be angry about it. A shameless disgrace.”
