In June, Vickrum Digwa was sentenced to life with a minimum term of 21 years for murdering Henry Nowak, 18, in Southampton. Photograph: Hampshire Police/PA In June, Vickrum Digwa was sentenced to life with a minimum term of 21 years for murdering Henry Nowak, 18, in Southampton. Photograph: Hampshire Police/PA Sentencing Henry Nowak’s killer has sentence extended by court of appeal Vickrum Digwa’s ‘unduly lenient’ term for Southampton teenager’s murder increased after attorney general’s appeal
Prefer the Guardian on Google Henry Nowak’s killer has seen his sentence extended by the court of appeal after it ruled that his original sentence was “unduly lenient”.
Vickrum Digwa’s original sentence of life with a minimum term of 21 years was lengthened to a minimum of 24 years and 190 days after a successful appeal by the attorney general, Ellie Reeves.
Digwa, 23, stabbed Nowak several times in an attack in Southampton in December last year.
When police arrived at the murder scene, Digwa falsely claimed Nowak had racially abused him and knocked his turban off, causing officers to arrest and handcuff Nowak before they saw his fatal injuries.
Digwa filmed his victim as he lay dying and lied to emergency services that Nowak, 18, had racially abused him.
The incident led to riots in Southampton.
Lady Chief Justice Carr said the original sentencing judge, William Mousley KC, had materially understated two distinct dimensions of Digwa’s offending.
She said: “First, the circumstances in which a large and immediately available dagger was used repeatedly with an intention to kill an unarmed man, and secondly, the deliberate cruelty, additional suffering, and obstruction [of justice] which followed the stabbing.”
She added: “A minimum term of 21 years did not adequately reflect the overall seriousness of the murder. It was not only lenient, but unduly so.
“Therefore, we quash the minimum term of 21 years. We replace it with a minimum term of 25 years. From that term must be deducted the 175 days spent in custody on remand, producing an operative minimum term of 24 years and 190 days.”
View image in fullscreen Henry Nowak was arrested and handcuffed by police before they saw his fatal injuries. Photograph: Family Handout/PA In written submissions on behalf of Reeves, Jonathan Polnay KC said the sentence failed to take into account a series of “significant aggravating factors”, including Digwa’s “false allegation of racism against the deceased” and his “abuse” of the privilege afforded to Sikhs to carry a knife in a public place for religious reasons.
At Digwa’s sentencing hearing, Mousley said that on the night of the murder, Digwa had a small knife hidden from view called a kirpan, which is a strict requirement for Sikhs to carry at all times.
Digwa also had a “large dagger in a sheath” due to his membership of the Nihang, an order of Sikhs which has a tradition of holding a second knife.
Polnay told the court that the attempt to increase the sentence was “not about the lawful possession of a kirpan” and the laws allowing Sikhs to carry blades. “It is about what followed.” He said Digwa’s use of the dagger was “on at least one level, analogous to an abuse of trust”.
He continued: “When a person who has the benefit of that accommodation uses the article protected by law for repeated lethal violence, that is an aggravating factor of particular weight.”
Polnay also cited “the offender’s sustained attempts to pervert the course of justice”…