Why Killing of White Man in UK Is Being Compared to George Floyd
In December 2025, Henry Nowak, 18, was fatally stabbed by a Sikh man while walking back to university dorms at night in the southern English city of Southampton.
When police arrived at the scene, the killer, Vickrum Digwa, 23, said that he was the victim in the attack-telling constables that he had been targeted in a racial hate crime.
Nowak, while he was lying on the floor, bleeding to death from his wounds, was handcuffed by police after hearing Digwa’s story.
Video released from the scene shows Nowak protesting to officers that he can’t breathe and that he had been stabbed. Bodycam footage shown in court shows one officer replying: “I don’t think you have, mate.”
Soon after, police released Nowak and arrested Digwa. Nowak died at the scene.
On Monday, Digwa received a life sentence with a minimum of 21 years from a British court. The details of how he was able to convince police he was the victim of a racist attack and the police treatment of Nowak have sparked national outrage, fueling a wider narrative from the far-right and anti-immigrant groups in the U.K. of institutional “racism against white people.”
Those groups have argued that the U.K. police showed a bias against white people by believing Digwa’s account over Nowak’s.
The case has also been compared to the high-profile police killing of George Floyd in the U.S. in 2020. Former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin, who is white, was convicted of murdering the Floyd, who was Black, in that case which led to widespread protests during the COVID pandemic.
Floyd also could clearly be heard saying, “I can’t breathe,” as Chauvin knelt on his neck.
The Nowak killing has led to violent protests in Southampton, where demonstrators have chanted and clashed with police. At least a dozen officers have been injured, according to police.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, said he “felt sick” watching the video in which Nowak repeatedly tells police he has been stabbed.
Why Are There George Floyd Comparisons?
Protesters have likened Nowak’s death to the killing of the 46-year-old Floyd after Chauvin, a police officer, knelt on his neck for more than nine minutes in Minneapolis in May 2020.
Floyd’s death ignited the Black Lives Matter movement-protests against racial injustice across the U.S. The incident also led to significant policing reforms, including departments across the U.S. changing how and when officers can use force.
In the U.K., the local police constabulary apologized for handcuffing and arresting Nowak in the minutes prior to his death, but there has been widespread criticism of how police handled the incident and it is being investigated by internal regulators.
Nigel Farage, the leader of the U.K.’s far-right populist Reform Party argued that Nowak’s death had echoes of Floyd’s murder and called for “an end to DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] and positive discrimination.”
“What does he [Nowak] say? ‘I can’t breathe.' Familiar words?” Farage asked in a video message uploaded on Tuesday. The party leader said Floyd had died in “appalling circumstances,” adding: “Remember the reaction to that and the way the police behaved?”
Farage then accused the U.K. of having a “two-tier culture.”
British Police ‘Concerned With The Accusation of Racism’?
Starmer said on Tuesday that the police had “serious questions” to answer over Nowak’s murder, including “how accusations of racism informed the decision-making.”
James Cleverly, an opposition Conservative Party lawmaker, suggested that British police were more worried about the possibility of being called racist than Nowak’s cries for help.
They “seemed more concerned with the accusation of racism than the pleas of a dying man,” Cleverly said.
In the U.K., the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) has spelled out in a publicly available document how police have an “anti-racism commitment,” saying that people from different ethnic groups should be treated “according to their specific needs, circumstances and experiences.”
The U.K.’s policing minister said on Wednesday the language of that pledge was “wrong” and “gives the wrong impression.”
An independent review into how police dealt with grooming gangs-which are groups of adult males that target children-in several British cities published last year, found that investigating authorities had been “avoiding the topic [of race and ethnicity] altogether for fear of appearing racist, raising community tensions or causing community cohesion problems.”
A Fair Comparison to Floyd?
Farage’s remarks, and broader comparisons between the two killings, quickly drew sharp condemnation from some commentators who said Nowak’s death has been inappropriately weaponized by far-right players, which included people like far-right activist Tommy Robinson being present at the protests in Southampton on Tuesday.
Former senior police officer Neil Basu told British outlet LBC that Farage’s statement was “inflammatory” and “extremist.”
Tahir Abbas, a professor of criminology and global justice at Aston University in Birmingham, England, told Newsweek he doesn’t think parallels between the Nowak and Floyd cases are “in any way accurate.”
“The words, ‘I cannot breathe,’ were used by Nowak because his lungs were filling up with blood and he was dying,” Abbas said. “The police officer in the case of George Floyd acted deliberately. In this case, the police officer acted unknowingly. This is a major difference.”
Henry’s Family Plea Against Division and Further Hatred
Mark Nowak, Henry’s father, told reporters that while he was angry with police, and he felt his son had been subjected to “inhumane and degrading” treatment, the family did “not want his death to be used to create further division, hatred or tension.”
“This is not a case about Sikhism. This is not a case about racism,” he added.
“This is a case about murder.”
A similar message was issued by Digwa’s family, who said in a statement they hoped the “tragedy is not used by anyone to inflame division or hostility towards any community.”
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This story was originally published June 3, 2026 at 1:45 PM.