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Police
chief warns anti-white bias claims could drive UK policing ‘back to 60s’
Senior
police figures are pushing back against politicians they accuse of stoking
tensions over Henry Nowak’s murder
Vikram
Dodd, Steven Morris and Peter Walker
Wed 3 Jun
2026 22.09 BST
Policing
could be driven back to the 1960s by false claims officers are biased against
white people, the leader of Britain’s black officers has said.
Ch Insp
Andy George, president of the National Black Police Association, spoke out amid
growing concerns that politicians such as Nigel Farage were stoking tensions
around the murder of teenager Henry Nowak by making baseless and provocative
claims.
Senior
figures in policing were among those who pushed back against his assertion that
the handcuffing of Nowak by officers in Southampton last December after he had
been stabbed amounted to two-tier policing and a bias against white people.
They also
denounced Farage for saying the response to the killing demanded “cold rage”.
Keir
Starmer accused the Reform UK leader of ignoring the wishes of the dead
teenager’s family and called the Reform leader’s actions “unforgivable”.
Nowak’s
father, Mark, had condemned the “inhumane and degrading” treatment of his son
by police.
But he
added: “We do not want his death to be used to create further division, hatred
or tension. We want his story to help make our streets safer for everyone.”
Hampshire’s
chief constable, Alexis Boon, whose officers are under scrutiny over the way
they dealt with the incident, on Wednesday apologised for the way Nowak had
been arrested and handcuffed. He added: “I’m so sorry you’ve had to go through
this.”
The
killing of Nowak, an 18-year-old university student, has sparked a nationwide
debate about policing.
The
teenager was stabbed last December by Vickrum Digwa, who falsely claimed he had
been racially attacked by him.
In fact,
Digwa had stabbed Nowak repeatedly, but officers arriving at the scene treated
the student as a suspect. He was handcuffed and put under arrest, despite
telling officers he had been stabbed and could not breathe.
The
Guardian has learned that police chiefs have ordered a nationwide increase in
intelligence gathering about potential violence believed to be linked to
far-right protests, after 11 officers were injured in clashes in Southampton on
Tuesday.
George
said bogus claims from politicians such as Farage and far-right activists that
policing is biased against white people could set back efforts to end systemic,
longstanding prejudice against black people.
He said:
“There is a danger of policing going back to a time long before Stephen
Lawrence’s murder, to the 1960s and 1970s, because of the attacks from the far
right which have been growing over the past few years, and which are becoming
more mainstream.”
In the
House of Lords, Doreen Lawrence, who fought police for justice after they
failed her murdered son Stephen in 1993, said: “My condolences goes out to
Henry Nowak’s family. I think what’s happened with him should never have
happened. And the police should be at fault for what happened on that night,”
she said.
Body cam
footage of the student’s final minutes is accepted by police sources to be
“traumatic”.
The
incident is being investigated by policing watchdog the Independent Office for
Police Conduct.
Sir Andy
Cooke, who stood down in April as chief inspector of constabulary, told the
Guardian he found no evidence of anti-white bias during his time scrutinising
all forces in England and Wales.
He said
politicians such as Farage were trying to “exploit” the Nowak case “to boost
their political fortunes” and worsen community tensions.
Cooke,
who was appointed by the Conservatives and won praise from both main parties,
said: “Throughout my five years at the inspectorate, I found no evidence at all
to support any claim there was an anti-white bias in operational policing.
“At a
time when there is disquiet in some communities, this is no time to play
politics with community tensions, particularly off the back of such a
distressing incident that caused so much pain to the family of Henry Nowak.
“This
should be a period of time where politicians respect the family’s wishes and do
not try to exploit such a tragic and painful situation to boost their political
fortunes.”
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His
intervention came as Southampton recovered from violence after protests led by
far-right activist Tommy Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon.
That followed Farage’s calls for “rage” at how Nowak was treated by police.
He had
been stabbed by Digwa after a dispute flared out of control, but officers were
unaware how seriously he was injured, ignored his pleas he had been stabbed for
about three minutes and handcuffed him.
One
senior police source said police believed politicians were attempting “to stoke
up tensions for political gain”, making clear they meant Farage and Robinson,
as well as some Conservatives, and “they were reckless about whether their
comments would lead to trouble on the streets”.
In the
House of Commons Starmer and Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, warned
against divisive rhetoric, and the prime minister condemned Farage for
exploiting the tragedy for political gain.
“This is
a time for serious work, not rage,” Starmer said, a response to Farage’s call
to respond to the case with “pure, cold rage”.
Farage
used a question to claim the UK was “living under two-tier policing”, saying
this had led to “the anger that you saw spilling out in Southampton last
night”.
Starmer
called the Reform UK leader’s comments “unforgivable” and said: “A grieving
family have asked us not to respond in the way that the leader of Reform has
responded … His response has been to appeal for rage – rage. That’s his
response to a father who has lost his son and asked for that not to happen.
Exploiting this tragedy to create grievance and division would be wrong in any
circumstances, but to do it when the family are expressly saying please don’t
is unforgivable. It shows exactly who he is.”
Government
and police are discussing a review of police promises on tackling racial bias
against black people, however, ministers are convinced some of the wording is
clumsy and open to attack.
In the
Portswood area of Southampton, where anti-police protesters clashed with
officers on Tuesday night, politicians and residents criticised the violence.
Satvir
Kaur, the MP for Southampton Test and the first female Sikh to become a UK
government minister, said she needed a security guard when she visited the area
because she had received death threats.
Riot
police line up during a protest attended by far-right figures in Southampton on
Tuesday.
Community
leaders said there had been an increase in hate aimed at Sikh people and some
were changing their routines to avoid being targeted and there were extra
police patrols around Sikh buildings.
Meanwhile,
a former police officer was forced to flee to a safe space after she was
falsely accused online of being involved in the arrest of Nowak.
Christi
Hill, who served as a police constable for 12 years, has criticised social
media and AI platforms, including Elon Musk’s Grok, for spreading the false
claim that she was one of the officers who arrested Nowak. She said she had
left the police more than a year before the murder.
Boon,
Hampshire’s most senior officer, rejected claims of anti-white bias and said:
“I don’t accept the term of two-tier policing, I don’t recognise it.”
He said
some of the criticism directed at Hampshire constabulary has been “unfair”, in
an interview with broadcasters.
This article was amended on 4 June 2026. An
earlier version misnamed the Southampton Test MP Satvir Kaur as “Satvir Khan”.
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