The head of the National Black Police Association has cautioned that police forces are dangerously close to making “not well thought-out” changes to anti-racism guidance following the murder of 18-year-old student Henry Nowak. Andy George, a Police Service of Northern Ireland chief inspector, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that any move to re-draft an anti-racism commitment in light of the case was purely “reactive.”
His comments arrived hot on the heels of former Home Secretary Jack Straw telling the Telegraph there had been an “over-correction” within policing since the 1993 murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence. Straw claimed “vocal pressure groups” had exerted too much influence, and urged “much greater care” with police race guidance. Nowak was arrested by officers as he lay dying after his attacker, 23-year-old Sikh man Vickrum Digwa, falsely claimed he had been racially abused by the student. Digwa was jailed for life with a minimum 21-year term on Monday.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) is investigating the response of officers. Meanwhile, the National Police Chiefs' Council is considering rewording an anti-racism commitment stating that ensuring racial equality “does not mean treating everyone 'the same' or being 'colour blind'” - after opposition politicians pointed to it as evidence of unequal standards. George said: “There's definitely lessons to be learned from the Henry Nowak case... For us to go forward and for the policing minister to say 'that needs to be corrected or looked into right now' - for us, when we've pushed for things that impact black communities or black individuals, we've never seen policing move as quick as what they're advocating for right now.” He added: “I think it's reactive to the current swell that we're seeing in social media and across different areas of public life at the minute.”
Straw was home secretary when the Macpherson Report branded the Metropolitan Police institutionally racist after Stephen Lawrence's murder. He now tells the Telegraph that “things were out of kilter at the time” but that reactions “go too far the other way.” Baroness Kishwar Falkner, former chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, disagreed there had been an over-correction but agreed a perception of unfairness had been established. She accused police forces of trying to “virtue signal,” warning of a “breakdown of impartiality and public trust and confidence,” and called for unconscious bias training to be scrapped because it is “proven not to work.” Speaking in the House of Lords, Baroness Lawrence, mother of Stephen Lawrence, shared condolences with the Nowak family and said: “I think what's happened with him should never have happened. And the police should be at fault for what happened on that night.”