Henry Nowak second thread, as requested.

[rolloverbeethoven]

www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5536249-henry-nowak?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=share

@aurpod1980 Part of your comment is fair enough - I know quite a few Sikhs attending more than one gurdwara and it applies to all of them but there may be others who are not being brainwashed at their gurdwaras. Not only is Britain blamed for everything that ever went wrong in India in the past it is still being blamed for everything that continues to go wrong. Teaching "British colonial history" is not the same as refusing to hear any criticism of the one sided view being presented - that's "racist" apparently. There is zero balance.

As for the police training - I disagree on that. There are other examples where the police have been too afraid of being seen as racist to do their job properly, aided by others in positions of authority. If that is not finally recognised and acted on then we risk a Farage government. I dont want to see that happen.

@Bluehouse14 Yes I've visited gurdwaras, dressed and behaved appropriately. I liked the Sikh religion until I learnt more about it.

I don’t have to publicly grieve for him. I’m happy saying my prayers silently thank you. My post was factual only - to prevent people blindly dramatising a set of events.

No one would want their 18 year old to be treated as Henry was. I can’t breathe nine times, I’ve been stabbed four times.

That’s what he pleaded. No dramatisation. But not your minimising and dismissal either.

I've been described as cold hearted and without empathy by so many people. I don't get upset, cry and not moved by other peoples suffering.
But Henry broke my my heart and for the first time in god knows how many years I actually cried. Watching that horrible video he looks so much like one of my ds.

Could I also state that Digwa did not use a kirpan, he used a weapon described as a Persian dagger. That is not a kirpan.

No come on. The farmer shot the burglar in the back as he ran away.

Likewise the golf club. These are positive acts of violence.

The only person at fault here is the thug that stabbed him. No police officer can ever deal with a situation perfectly - it’s not possible.

If you are so appalled, vote to stop the funding cuts, overworked and underpaid police will only make this worse.

Why the fuck was he carrying any weapon to start with ?

I wouldn’t assume that because I’ve seen too many examples of where they fail in that duty. But you’re right that we should be able to assume that.

They failed at that and that does need to be addressed. But making it about anti-racism
doesn’t actually solve the problem, any more than throwing missiles at the police does.

That’s all im objecting to. I have zero faith in the police, so them being shit is no surprise. But fixing that will take much more than changing guidelines. If people think the far right can fix it, they can vote for that. They could not be more wrong - police corruption and failure in far right (ie low trust) societies is well known to be higher than more centrist democracies. I think ultimately a Reform or similar government would harm the fat pink men outside the police station more than anyone else, through economic and public service decline. But let them try.

There is a profound macho dickhead culture that Digwa seems to have been familiar with.

Yes Sikhism is generally benign but there's this whole "community guardian" thing that's developed particularly around the claims of grooming attempts by Pakistani origin guys "taking our girls". Add to that the weapons fetishism and eeeeeeek

There is a lot of hair splitting about the religious name for a knife. The reality of this is that is an offensive weapon.

I think that’s an important point and something the Sikh federation has also stressed, most Sikh people wouldn’t carry something like this . I have also heard the judge gave a more lenient sentence due to religious carrying of a weapon that would of otherwise been regarded as offensive? I do think reporting has been confused.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce8pkr2pzeyo?app-referrer=webview

Presumably they gave medical aid to the people that were injured and didn't allow them to suffer in silence.

The farmer and old man were victims of crime but the others were injured and needed care

Arresting them for causing injuries isn't in it self a problem as police can do this and then they will either be released without charge if no route to prosecute or if the police believe the farmer/ older man acted unlawfully this can go to court where evidence will be weighed up.

It would be awful to be arrested for protecting yourself when you property is targeted by someone. But these situations are not at all comparable
The people arrested in your examples were not harmed by police or their injuries ignored or mocked. The injured parties were not dragged across the floor and handcuffed instead of medical attention

Your examples are not comparable in any way

People who protest loudly when being arrested are struggling and being aggressive towards the police. Henry Novak wasn't doing any of that. He was laying on the floor clearly in distress, not even able to move much.

He stated numerous times that he'd been stabbed. Common sense should tell you to look for stab wounds on the body.

There was no reason for him to be handcuffed. He wasn't struggling or resisting arrest.

The police and everyone need to learn from this.

What a strange post.
I went to school in the 70s. No, we didn’t learn about it.

Sure they need to learn. Always space to learn.

Your first sentence is completely incorrect though, sometimes completely well people lie on the floor and pretend to be unconscious when arrested, and sometimes they protest loudly, and everything in between.

In every single scenario above the police have to determine the nature of the situation. In this case, they came to that conclusion in 1 minute.

3 or 4 minutes, not 1. They were on scene for 3 or 4 minutes before they looked at his eyes and acknowledged something was wrong. The handcuffs were on for 1 minute, but they’d been there for longer than they, talking to the group, looking at Henry, dragging him across the ground, telling him “I don’t think you have been, mate” and ignoring him.

The point being is he carried the weapon under the illusion of it being for religious reasons. If challenged for carrying a dangerous weapon he would say it's for religious reasons and HR, Police, businesses etc would be wary of questioning if that was appropriate because they would be branded racist.
Many sikhs don't carry items that are as dangerous, many don't have bad intentions
But when someone does have an extreme version of the weapon and bad intentions it would be so difficult to challenge this as they have an exception which allows sikhs to carry it.

If you read reports of harm he caused others in school, being barred from groups - he was a known risk long before this but it wasn't dealt with for fear of it being deemed racist.

yes, 3 or 4 to assess an entire situation and multiple people! 1 minute to alter their actions.

No, the judge extended the sentemce because a kirpan used to attack someone is no longer a kirpan.

No, he didn’t. The minimum in the sentencing guidelines for taking a knife to a scene and murdering someone is 25 years. The judge gave a minimum of 21, because the knife was carried for religious reasons.

That is the reason that the attorney general is reviewing the sentence as unduly lenient, because the religious protections of carrying the knife should be removed once that knife is used. The minimum should have been 25 years before he can apply for parole.

Regardless if it’s a religious weapon or not, it’s a weapon. To hire a kilt now you aren’t allowed to carry a sgian dubh they come with plastic ones are you aren’t allowed something which can be used as a weapon

I was responding to pp calling people morons for not knowing the 5Ks from school.
As it happens I know the 5Ks through knowing Sikhs, I hear that the kirpan can be symbolic. I was somewhat surprised that matey boy was allowed to openly wear a larger, more deadly blade. When the atmosphere is less febrile I'm sure we'll talk about it.

You see that’s absolutely wrong. No one should be able use a religious reason to justify the holding of an offensive weapon. I am guessing the Act will be amended

They arrived at a completely calm scene. There was no pandemonium going on that they had to deal with, there was no bad behaviour from anyone. There were 4 officers, and a totally calm scene. They should have immediately had two officers attending to the man lying on the ground. When Henry realised police were there, he said I’ve been stabbed, he said ambulance, he said he couldn’t breathe. Whilst he was sitting up. This was ignored. They continued chatting to the family, they went and dragged Henry across the ground and told him he hadn’t been stabbed.

I could understand them missing this if the scene was chaotic. But it was calm. And the ignored him. They should have immediately had their attentions on the man on the floor, who was a grey colour, you could hear gurgling when he spoke… there is no excuse for his long they took. And there is no excuse for handcuffing him, and then just sitting there saying “I’ll stay here and hold him in his side, you talk to them.”

This was bad policing. In a completely calm scene, they should have had their attention in that boy, checked his pupils and removed his shirt to check for wounds. There was no excuse for not bothering to do any of that once they arrived on scene. His last moments should have been comfort, not being arrested and read his writes and called a liar.