Family members of Vickrum Digwa, the murderer of Henry Nowak, face weapons charges relating to the same day that the 18-year-old was stabbed to death and left to bleed out in front of police.
On Monday, Vickrum Digwa, 23, was handed a so-called “life sentence” of at least 21 years in prison over the murder of Henry Nowak, having stabbed the 18-year-old several times on December 4th of last year with a ceremonial Sikh knife.
Meanwhile, Vickrum’s mother, Kiran Kaur, was previously found guilty of assisting her son during the killing by removing the murder weapon from the scene of the crime and stashing it in their family home. She is currently awaiting sentencing.
On Tuesday, Vikrum will also face six charges of possessing an offensive weapon. Vickrum’s brother, Gurpreet Digwa, 27, and his father, Moga Singh, 52, will also both appear before Southampton Magistrates’ Court this afternoon over various weapons charges relating to December 4, 2025, the same day on which Nowak was killed.
The charges come as police allegedly discovered traditional ceremonial Sikh knives, a baton, a machete, and a sword, The Sun reported.
During Vickrum’s trial, it was also revealed that the killer’s family members had told police that Nowak had been racist towards his attacker. This was not true, but it is not clear who knew the truth at this point beyond convicted killer Digwa himself.
The responding officers accepted the family’s account of events as true and disbelieved Nowak as he pleaded for help. As he told officers that he could not breathe and that he had been stabbed, officers chose to arrest and handcuff the 18-year-old as he lost consciousness and ultimately his life.
In a statement released on Tuesday, the Digwa family issued an apology to the Nowak family and to the broader Sikh community in Britain.
The family said, “The loss of a young life is a grief that no family should ever have to carry. We are deeply sorry for the pain and suffering the Nowak family has had to endure. We love Vickrum. We will continue to love him. That love does not stand in opposition to the sorrow we feel for the Nowak family. Both are real, and both will remain with us for the rest of our lives.
“We would give anything to turn back time so the path of both Henry and Vickrum never crossed that night. We cannot change what has happened, we just hope that no further pain is caused in its name.
“We apologise to the Sikh community for our son’s actions which have unfairly brought the community into disrepute. We ask that this tragedy is not used by anyone to inflame division or hostility towards any community. We now ask for privacy as we come to terms with what lies ahead.”
In addition to demands that culpable family members also face justice, there have been calls, including from Brexit leader Nigel Farage, for the government to intervene in the sentencing of Digwa over Nowak’s murder, arguing that the 21-year sentence is too light.
On Tuesday morning, a spokesman for Attorney General Lord Hermer said, per The Guardian, that they had “received multiple requests for Vickrum Digwa’s sentence to be considered under the unduly lenient sentence scheme.”
“The law officers have 28 days from sentencing to carefully consider the case and make a decision,” the spokesman added.
The government also announced that it does not plan on removing the special dispensation for Sikhs to carry their traditional knives in public, with Home Secretary Shabanna Mahmood saying that “carrying a knife for the purpose of religious observance is one thing – using it is quite another”.
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