University of Southampton student killed in stabbing, police response questioned

Henry Nowak’s killing laid bare a chain of failures that began with a knife in public and ended with a dying student briefly handcuffed by police. The 18-year-old first-year accountancy and finance student at the University of Southampton was stabbed five times on Belmont Road in Portswood on 3 December 2025 as he walked home from a night out with friends.

Jurors at Southampton Crown Court heard that Vickrum Digwa, 23, used a Sikh kirpan ceremonial knife with an 8-inch, 21cm blade. The attack left Henry with significant internal bleeding from a chest wound, and he was pronounced dead at the scene in the early hours of 4 December. Digwa was convicted of murder and possession of a bladed article in a public place, while his mother, Kiran Kaur, 53, was found guilty of assisting an offender after removing the knife from the scene.

The trial also exposed how quickly the scene was misunderstood. Police initially handcuffed Henry after arriving, before the handcuffs were removed within minutes when officers realised the extent of his injuries. An ambulance was called and officers attempted CPR, but the sequence has raised difficult questions about how emergency responses are handled when violence, blame and confusion converge. Hampshire Constabulary later apologised for the arrest-handcuffing of Henry while he was dying, and the case has been referred to the Independent Office for Police Conduct to examine officers’ actions.

Digwa also falsely told police that Henry had attacked him and used racist language, further muddying the first moments after the stabbing. Those details matter because they show how a killer’s account, a visible weapon and a chaotic street scene can distort judgment at exactly the point when speed and accuracy are most critical. The knife itself, a ceremonial kirpan with a long blade, is now central to scrutiny over how such a weapon was carried, used and concealed in plain sight.

At sentencing on 1 June 2026, Digwa was jailed for life with a minimum term of 21 years. Henry’s father, Mark Nowak, said the family wanted a “full, fearless and transparent” investigation and described his son as kind, ambitious and full of promise. Henry, from Chafford Hundred in Essex, had only just begun his university life; the questions left behind now reach far beyond one street in Southampton.