Transcription
All right, let's turn to the UK now to the horrific murder of innocent Henry Noah, who, while being handcuffed, had told police that he had been stabbed and couldn't breathe.
"What's happened to you, all right? You've been stabbed, whereabouts?"
"I don't think you have, mate."
"I can't breathe."
"Put the hand in the cuff, mate."
His murderer, Vikram Digwa, lied to police, claiming that the 18-year-old had been racist. And here was his brother calling emergency services.
"He's got attacked racially by some white person."
"All right, okay. Whereabouts are you?"
"Uh, we're on Belmont Road. We just parked up my car to come home and he's attacked my brother."
"You talking about verbally or physically?"
"No, no, he's physically attacked my brother. We're Sikhs. We wear a turban and he's just attacked my brother."
And now the streets are heaving with protesters. People are white-hot with fury that police were more worried about claims of racism than about taking his last breath after being stabbed, and they didn't even believe him. It's lit a political firestorm, and to discuss, Spiked chief political writer Brendan O'Neill joins us live from London. Brendan, thank you for being here. Look, this injustice has really touched a nerve.
Yeah, it really has. People in this country are furious about this case. It is so horrific, so barbaric. I mean, firstly, you have the killing itself, this horrific murder of a a boy, essentially, an 18-year-old lad in his first year of university. He was knifed to death in Southampton in England in December by Vikram Digwa. And then to make it even worse, the cops turn up, as you say, and you you've just shown some of the body cam footage there. They dragged Henry across the gravel of the driveway that he had slumped into. They shoved his hands behind his back. They cuffed him. They accused him of lying. They said, "I don't think you have, mate," when he said that he'd been stabbed. In In that moment, he said, "I can't breathe," nine times and he said, "I can't, I've been stabbed," four times. They didn't believe him and he died a couple of moments later. It's so horrendous and it raises so many questions not only about the evil of the killer, but about the complicity of the state when it enacts two-tier policing.
Yeah, and it shows just the extent to which identity politics has infused policing. Um I was going to say the justice system, but he has been sentenced to 21 years this week, the the perpetrator. Now, Nigel Farage has come out pretty strongly on this. He has been accused of exploiting the tragedy. What's your view on this?
He's not exploiting the tragedy at all. I think when when Farage said that he he feels pure cold rage over this killing, he was speaking for many people in this country, 'cause that's exactly how I felt when I watched the body cam footage. That's how millions of people felt when they saw this horrific footage of a boy taking his final breaths and all he can hear are the libelous slanders of his killer calling him a racist and the arresting the comments of the arresting officers. That is an awful, unspeakable way for this boy to have died. So, people are furious about this and as you say, it raises huge questions about identity politics because the police in this country are overrun with critical race theory. They are expressly trained to see non-white people as victims and to see white people as potentially problematic. They are taught to believe every accusation of a hate crime. That's why the Vikram Digwa family played the racism card because they knew that the police would have to respond in the way that they did. So, this raises questions about the wokeness that is infusing our institutions and what we're going to do to dismantle it.
It's hard to believe that Keir Starmer is still your prime minister. We we, you know, have been reporting so many times that he was on the verge of going, but how do you think this will impact him? He was very slow to respond in a strong way on this.
You know, the really sickening thing is that Keir Starmer and virtually our entire political establishment took the knee for George Floyd when he was killed in Minneapolis in 2020. None of them have done it for Henry Noah. None of them have done it for this boy who was so horribly killed and then so badly mistreated by the police when he was dying. Henry Noah also said, "I can't breathe." Those were his last words, just like they were the last words of George Floyd. And yet our ruling class takes the knee for a man who died 4,000 miles away, but not for this boy who died right here in England. It is such a disgusting double standard, and it really shows up in the figure of Keir Starmer. He felt more grief, more passion for the death of a career criminal a whole ocean away than he does for this sweet, tender kid who lived right here in Britain. So, that's the problem we have, and it really has exposed the double standards of the people who rule over us.
It has indeed, and I mean, you you've just put it so well there, but it reinforces how just horrific it would have been for 18-year-old Henry to be trying to get medical attention. And I don't think we've quite emphasized this, but no one called the emergency services. They put handcuffs on him. They arrested him, but they didn't call emergency services. I I My understanding is he actually died before that call was made, or he lost consciousness at least before the call was made.
That's right. The police simply refused to believe him. He said he'd been stabbed. He said he couldn't breathe. He was obviously in medical distress. He was groaning. He was on the ground. It would have been clear to anyone, an ordinary member of the public, never mind a trained police officer, that this was a kid in severe distress, but no call was made to the emergency services because the killer was saying he hasn't been stabbed. The killer was saying he's just a racist, he's a drunk, and the police believed his lies. It is beyond horrific what the police did that evening. And the thing is, Henry was crying out to be believed. The only thing he had going for him in that awful moment was the belief of other people. If they had believed, maybe something could have been done, but they didn't believe him, and heads need to roll over such an injustice.
Yeah, absolutely terrible. Brendan O'Neill, thank you so much for being here again.