As the row over the police handling of the stabbing of Henry Nowak by Vickrum Digwa continues, critics on the right have suggested that a preoccupation with anti-racism played a significant role in the failure by officers at the scene to properly assess what had happened – and resulted in the appalling treatment of Nowak as he lay dying.
Criticisms have focused in particular on a document published by the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) last year, the police anti-racism commitment. Critics have also claimed that there is a broader sense that the police’s instincts are now to side against white people whenever there is any doubt.
But an analysis of the evidence and interviews with policing experts suggest this account misses crucial aspects of the circumstances that led to a devastating set of failures.
What does the police chiefs’ document say and why is it controversial?
The police anti-racism commitment was produced as part of the police race action plan. But it is not widely known: even some of those who worked closely on it have never heard of it.
It summarises what police chiefs will do to end racial bias. The part that has become controversial this week says: “It does not mean treating everyone ‘the same’ or being ‘colour blind’ (racial equality).”
The home secretary has said she believes the phrasing is “clumsy”. What it is supposed to mean, said one person with knowledge of police thinking on the matter, is that officers should take into account the context and historic experience of different groups with policing.
Someone who is Jewish may need reassurance that police are taking a claim of criminal damage seriously and that hate will be considered as a motive, for instance. A black person may need particular reassurance that a stop and search is for legitimate reasons and not racially motivated.
Ministers accept the document was not sent to officers to act on, but regardless it gives the wrong impression.
Sarah Jones, the policing minister, said: “I don’t think it forms the basis of any training or any police activity. We think the language is wrong, it gives the wrong impression. But I don’t think it affects how our training is done.”
The NPCC made clear the document was not formal policy or training for officers. One source went further, saying few senior officers, never mind those on the frontline, would know it existed, let alone be guided by it.
What other policies shape how police treat claims of racially motivated incidents?
Police are supposed to treat claims of a racial motivation seriously. But that was different to automatically accepting any claim that an alleged crime was motivated by hate, said Britain’s former head of counter-terrorism, Neil Basu.
Basu, a former Metropolitan police detective who became Britain’s most senior ethnic minority officer, added: “When a victim says something you take it seriously, but that is different to believing it. The policy is supposed to stop police officers ignoring victims without investigating.”
The policy came out of the 1999 Macpherson report into the murder of Stephen Lawrence and was supposed to guide the recording of hate crimes and force better investigation of them.
What is the evidence on ‘two-tier’ policing in the UK disadvantaging white people?
There are no official figures on anti-white bias in operational policing, but the statistics that do exist show longstanding racial bias against ethnic minorities, and especially against black people.
Police use of force – such as Taser use – and coercive powers such as stop and search are greater against black people than white people, and police chiefs cannot explain why.
The police race action plan, launched after the murder of George Floyd in the US, was meant to tackle the enduring problems police have with race. But there has been little improvement.
An independent assessment of the multimillion pound plan concluded it had had no “meaningful impact”, with police chiefs lukewarm in their commitment.
As Basu points out, every independent report going back to the 1980s, including first by Lord Scarman, then Macpherson in 1999 and Louise Casey in 2023, has found police failing on race.
They made promises but little if anything improved, said Basu. He added that claims the police had overreacted to evidence of bias against black people by being biased against white people were laughable: “How can it be an overreaction to something that was barely reacted to in the first place?”
How do police assess competing claims when they arrive at a scene?
Officers are taught the national decision making model.
The College of Policing says: “Police decision making is often complex. Decisions are required in difficult circumstances and are often made based on incomplete or contradictory information.
“In addition … those involved [may] deliberately mislead or try to mislead them.”
It provides a framework for officers to justify their decision making. But it cannot protect policing from bad decisions, and that is at the centre of the Nowak case.
One frontline officer with 25 years experience said the “mindset” an officer had when they attended an incident affected how they reacted, and could be difficult to shake off.
This could be shaped by the details the officer was given by their control room. The officer added: “There’s a danger that this clouds judgment. It can fall into: ‘This is the problem I’ve been told to solve, so this is the problem I will solve’.”
If it was not race, what else could explain police actions in dealing with Nowak?
The trial judge said that until too late the police were “in ignorance of the fact that [Nowak] had a serious chest wound”.
From the bodycam footage of Nowak’s arrest, it appears the police do not see any blood consistent with a stab wound.
As the judge noted in his sentencing remarks, Nowak’s clothing was dark, and the incident took place when it was dark. The bleeding that resulted from Nowak’s injury flowed into his chest cavity, the judge said.
Donna Jones, the Conservative police and crime commissioner for Hampshire, has asked for a review from the policing inspectorate of these issues, and “how officers are trained to triage competing accounts at the scene of a violent incident”. Her letter asks the inspectorate to examine how officers understand “the physiological presentation of serious internal bleeding”.
Every past and former police source who spoke to the Guardian said they believed “professional curiosity” by officers on the bodycam footage was lacking and questioned the decision to handcuff Nowak.
