Reflection on the killing of Henry Nowak

Photo by Mike Labrum on Unsplash

Watching the footage of the final moments of dying student Henry Nowak has impacted me in a way that I probably last experienced following the murder of George Floyd. I have the same overwhelming feeling of sadness and horror. The same feeling of betrayal because of the involvement of police officers who are meant to be the people who keep us safe. Once again I'm drawn to deeper reflection on the interplay between institutional and personal sin.

On this occasion the police are not responsible for the death. Henry's wounds were internal and the judgement of medical professionals is that there was nothing the police could have done to save his life at that point.

The betrayal instead focuses on why they chose to believe his murderer, who stayed around to watch, rather than the young man telling them multiple times that he had been stabbed and couldn't breathe. The answer appears to be that the assailant made an accusation of racial assault - a lie that was quickly exposed - but led to Henry's arrest and handcuffing, making his final moments a humiliation in a way that is as distressing to witness as a white police officer with his knee on a black man's neck.

The whole case reminds me, in some respects, of Carl Beech, the man who fabricated allegations about a VIP child abuse ring in 2019. For years campaigners had argued - correctly - that what abuse victims most need is to be believed. This led to nationwide training in every professional field that reversed years of accepting the word of the powerful over the powerless. Then along comes someone who exploits this for his own messed up reasons. Religion would call it sin. The temptation to use others' striving after righteousness as a means to bring them down. Not every accuser can be presumed to be truthful.

That racism is an ugly reality in our society that still needs to be confronted on a daily basis is still a sad truth. One need only look at the social media feeds of black footballers, or better still read the social history of ethnic minorities in Britain by historians such as David Olusoga. That an individual can use the empathy that engenders to worsen the suffering he has already inflicted on his victim makes you despair for humanity.

What disturbs me most deeply today is the resentment politics currently being brought to bear on this case. When Nigel Farage said on social media that people should respond with "pure cold rage", he was not referring to the murder, but to the police treatment of Nowak because, he claims, Britain has a "two tier culture where the rights and privileges of white people matter less than those of ethnic minorities". Such a viewpoint immediately sets out to trigger resentment, rather than invite understanding between communities. Does our recent history of correcting 'white privileges', such as those that enabled the white killers of black student Stephen Lawrence to escape justice, now mean that the situation is reversed?

Do white people matter less in today's Britain? That has not been my experience. But in a part of the country (Essex) where my MP is a black woman (Kemi Badenoch), the local Anglican Bishop is an Iranian child refugee (Guli Francis-Deqhani) and evidence of many 'ethnic minorities' doing better for themselves than many white locals is all around, it is easy to see how the politics of resentment can be fostered, not overtly aimed at these high profile targets, of course, but punching down on the 'illegal', the asylum seeker or the religious community with which a killer is identified.

Instead, perhaps our politicians would serve us better if they called for personal, social and political maturity. As the societal correction of historical discrimination starts to take effect, our training will increasingly need to take into account the nature and occurrence of individual sin (crime) within the experiences of structural inequalities or abuse that we are seeking to address.
Rest in peace, Henry Nowak. You should never have been treated the way you were. May what happened to you be another moral learning point for our country and our world.

LINK

Murdered student Henry Nowak told police 'I can't breathe' while handcuffed - www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crlpyw05l75o?