Henry Nowak murder case: Fear of unconscious bias has led to unconscionable bias

Over 75 per cent of Britain is still white, never mind the impression conveyed by the composition of the political class, the arts and academic communities and other more visible and vocal sections. But they are caught in a cleft stick: either they are genuinely racist, or they are damned anyway as “unconsciously biased”. There is no way for them to exist as equals, because now the narrative is that neutrality and equality are actually unfair—the latter another racist word.

The conviction and sentencing this week of a British Sikh man for stabbing a teenage white student to death with his kirpan in Southampton last December has brought out this ridiculous dichotomy in British society, created by the over-wrought consciences of administrators, “liberal” politicians and the police. While the 23-year-old killer has got a life sentence, the political storm raised by the incident has raised issues that should not be just brushed under the carpet.

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The grim fact is that the Sikh man had deliberately lied to officers that 18-year-old Henry Nowak had knocked his turban off in a racially motivated attack, thereby pressing all the right buttons to ensure he was automatically treated as the victim rather than the aggressor, as the other person was white. Whether it was due to biased training or just a desire to appear “fair”, the police immediately took the attacker’s word as the truth and did not verify the details of the incident.

Bodycam footage released only now by Hampshire Police reveals that the fatally injured Nowak had pleaded with the police officers, saying repeatedly, “I can’t breathe” and “I’ve been stabbed.” Not only did they all ignore his pleas, but an officer could be heard callously replying “I don’t think you have, mate,” without even bothering to verify. And the boy bled to death on the pavement. The police officers in this case were indeed being racist—but in the opposite direction.

They were so conscious that he was white and a non-white person had alleged racism that they did not bother to investigate and presumed him to be guilty. It was just as bad as the presumed earlier practice of thinking that ethnic minorities were automatically in the wrong. Compensating one kind of alleged bias by overcorrecting in the other direction in the interest of “equality” or justice is a travesty. It is unconscionable that police are being trained to do just that in the West.

The police chief of Hampshire has “apologised” to the victim’s parents, but can that be deemed an adequate response? When a Black or non-white person is the victim of police brutality, there is hell to pay. But when it is a teenage white boy, why are there pleas from across the political spectrum—except from Reform’s irrepressible Nigel Farage—not to “politicise” the matter? Should there not be a deeper soul-searching about what political narrative led to this tragedy too?

When Stephen Lawrence, also an 18-year-old student, was attacked and murdered by a gang of young white boys in southeast London in April 1993, it was a very different Britain. The white boys were known delinquents, while the Black victim was not. But the police botched up the case, and the suspects got away. It caused a firestorm of protest about the inherent bias in police procedure and set the stage for remedial measures in law enforcement, including retraining police officials.

A public inquiry conducted by Sir William Macpherson in the aftermath of the protests at Lawrence’s murder concluded in 1998 that the original probe was incompetent and that the police forces in the UK were “institutionally racist”. Macpherson had defined the term as “the collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture, or ethnic origin", drawing heavily from the US civil rights experience.

Eventually, the Lawrence case was reopened and retried in 2010, as the proviso against double jeopardy in murder, rape and kidnapping had been removed by then, and new evidence was finally sought and found—including DNA traces. At that time, interestingly, the Director of Public Prosecutions was Sir Keir Starmer. Two attackers were convicted and jailed for life. And in 2013, Stephen’s mother Doreen was elevated to the peerage as Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon.

Why was she ennobled? In recognition of her campaigning for racial equality, justice, and community relations. What are the chances that any of the parents of Nowak (mother, father and step-parents) will be rewarded for any work they may do in the future to ensure proper investigation into the circumstances of the death of their son, who was stabbed and killed in an unprovoked attack on his way home to his college accommodation by an ethnic minority? Slim, if not impossible.

Because there is institutionalised racism now of a different kind, embedded in the British system and society since the Lawrence case. The law enforcement and criminal justice systems have been reconditioned to react in exactly the opposite way to what they allegedly did in 1993, which is just as bad as the original sin, so to speak. A white person is more likely to be looked at suspiciously now if the word ‘racism’ is used within earshot of police, thanks to new training norms.

Unfortunately, this only gives the real racists among the whites an excuse to react, as the patent unfairness of this approach is apparent. Those who brickbatted the police in Southampton probably have very little in common with Nowak’s family when it comes to attitudes towards ethnic minorities. After all, the judge who passed sentence on Nowak’s killer Vickrum Digwa noted that the deceased boy was not the type to have levelled a racist slur at the Sikh as had been alleged.

Farage has predictably accused the Labour government of perpetuating the ‘two-tier’ system of policing that advocates different approaches depending on the race of the suspects. Now Donald Trump has echoed Farage’s accusation. That Nowak’s pleas were ignored and his hands were cuffed behind his back as he lay dying, but Digwa was never handcuffed even when he was identified as a killer shows that British cops now treat perpetrators differently for the same crime.

No matter how much the police try to fall back on extenuating circumstances—it was dark, so the stab wounds were not discernible; Nowak was wearing dark clothes; his bleeding was largely internal, etc—the officers who arrived at the spot failed in their duty to first try to save Nowak; they let themselves be misled by the killer and his family. Can this oversight be blamed on poor training? Or was this the current kind of institutionalised (or officially inculcated) bias at play?

The implications of this skew are serious, as three out of four Britons in the UK today are white. And if all of them start feeling that the law and justice systems are ranged against them from the get-go, the rise of extreme politics is guaranteed. Space for moderate or apolitical views on this issue will progressively reduce. The government must take steps to remedy this ridiculous situation wherein unequal treatment of people on the ground of race is passed off as justice.

(The author is a freelance writer. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect.)