A weapons-obsessed killer has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 21 years for the murder of student Henry Nowak.
Killer Vickrum Digwa, 23, lied to police claiming he was the victim after he was called a ‘P***’ and had his turban knocked off close to his home.
His ‘wicked lie’ left the University of Southampton student ‘dying alone, humiliated and handcuffed’ as he lay in a pool of his blood from a fatal 8cm chest wound from his ceremonial dagger.
A verbal altercation between the family friends of the victims and the killer broke out in the gallery with people shouting ‘stop’ after the verdict was read out.
Digwa was also convicted of carrying a ceremonial knife with a 21cm blade in a public place.
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He was filmed by his victim telling him: ‘I am a bad man’ moments before the knife attack which included two stab wounds to the back of Mr Nowak’s legs and a fatal wound to his heart.
He filmed Henry desperately trying to get away, scaling a fence, onto a communal bin, before landing on a car in front of the property next door.
He also ‘lied’ by telling officers that he had not stabbed Mr Nowak despite the student’s pleas for help as he told the police that he was struggling to breathe.
Nicholas Lobbenberg KC, prosecuting, told the court: ‘Henry Nowak dying alone, humiliated and handcuffed was a direct consequence of Vickrum Digwa’s dishonesty.
‘Vickrum Digwa chose on two occasions to make videos, first of Henry fleeing and then of Henry dying with close-ups of his face. The Crown says that is both intrusive and humiliating.
‘His defence describing Henry as a violent drunk racist aggressor compounds the grief of the family.’
Sentencing Digwa to life, Judge William Mousley KC told the defendant: ‘You, Vickrum Digwa, murdered him, by doing so you robbed him of all those he loved, all the things he cared about and liked to do.
‘He would have been expected to live a long and hopefully happy and fulfilling life. You have brought misery and a lifetime of loss upon his family, and great sadness to everyone who knew him.’
The judge addressed claims that Nowak had used a racist word against Digwa.
‘I am sure that Henry said nothing racist,’ he says.
‘You are the only person to make that claim and it is completely at odds with his previous character.’
Lucy, the mother of Henry, said in a statement read to the court: ‘Henry was ambitious, determined and full of life, he was a messy sod and always hungry, but he had his whole life ahead of him, that future has been cruelly taken away.
‘The impact of his loss has been devastating not only for me but for our entire family and for all who knew him, we are learning to support one another through this unimaginable grief, but the pain is constant, our family will never be the same.
‘He will never be forgotten and he will always be loved beyond words. No sentence handed down will bring Henry back.’
She also described the moment her son told her, his face ‘beaming’, that he had been an offered a place to study at the University of Southampton while on holiday in Greece, adding: ‘It was one of the proudest moments of my life and a moment I will treasure forever.’
It came after Olivia, the sister of Henry Nowak, spoke directly to the defendant as she told him: ‘If you had known him, you would never have hurt him.’
She told the court: ‘My brother was my first best friend, an unbreakable bond, we lived our life to the fullest together.”
She added: ‘He lit up every room that he walked into and the world became less valuable the day he left.”
She described him as ‘funny, handsome, precious and kind’, and added: ‘My brother should not be forever 18, he deserved to grow old and start a family of his own, to be an uncle to my children.’
Speaking outside Southampton Crown Court, Henry Nowak’s father Mark said ‘justice in the eyes of the law has been served but justice alone is not enough’.
‘We are calling on the Government to treat knife crime as the national emergency that it is,’ he said.
‘This is not a case about Sikhism. This is not a case about racism. This is a case about murder.
‘People should not be able to walk openly through the streets of Britain carrying a 21cm blade.
‘As a family, we will not let this go. No other family should experience the heartbreak and horror of losing a child to knife crime.’
He said the family would ‘carry this grief every single day for the rest of our lives’, adding: ‘Today Henry was believed. The truth was recognised.’
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