by Arthur Foxake, 2 June 2026
The most damning illustration yet of the societal collapse wrought by the infiltration of all state institutions by woke ideology is the murder, in December 2025, of 18 year-old student Henry Nowak, who, in the last moments of his life, was stripped of dignity and treated as a criminal rather than a victim of crime as he lay, bleeding to death from multiple stab wounds because of a grotesque failure of police judgement. After his killer, standing unharmed only a few feet from where Henry lay, accused him of racism, the officers seemed more alert to the reputational danger of mishandling that accusation than to the obvious reality of who was in danger and who needed immediate, life-saving protection.
Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary has only now, six months later, been dragged, kicking and screaming, into releasing the officers’ body-worn video footage, and it is every bit as appalling as can be imagined. Since becoming involved in alt--news journalism about twenty years ago I have watched Islamic State, South American drug cartel and Nigerian Boko Haram videos of terrorist atrocities, yet this ranks among the most harrowing. Henry Nowak said multiple times that he had been stabbed, yet an officer replied, “I don’t think you have, mate.” OK, it was dark, and the murderer, realising just what he’d done, was doing his best to distract officers by complaining of his victim's 'racism.'
But they heard Henry state he’d been stabbed and that he couldn’t breathe. And their emergency life support training would have made them aware of the possibility of internal, invisible bleeding.
For generations, British police forces were widely respected and had the support and trust of the public for their fairness and impartiality, restraint and equal application of the law. That reputation and the trust and confidence which went with it has now been destroyed. Policing is now, as the nation is swamped by a wave of crime liked to mass immigration, shaped less by principles of justice than by political anxiety, identity politics and 'woke' dogma. After a succession of high-profile failures culminating in this one, it is no longer credible to dismiss that charge as culture-war exaggeration. It is shown plainly in the conduct of the police themselves that British justice operates a two tier system with different rules for white, Christian or secular heterosexuals and another for minorities of certain race, religion or gender identities/
The situation becomes beyond redemption when officers become so
frightened of causing offence, provoking protest or being accused by the
organisation of racism, Islamophobia, homophobia or transphobia (all of which are nonsensical concepts, that they allow policing policy to become political.
In cases like the tragic death of Henry Nowak, fear of not taking an accusation
of racism seriously enough was allowed to overwhelm the basic duty to protect the vulnerable,
assess the facts and enforce the law equally. This is not an
unfortunate side-effect. It is an obvious, foreseeable result of years
of signals from the top, of officers being forced to attend racial awareness courses, lectured by transgender ideologues and gay rights lunatics or harangued by radical Islamic hate preachers. Senior leaders, through their activism
(for that is what it is), have created a culture in which the most
career-threatening accusation – racism – can freeze judgement at the
exact moment when potentially life-saving action is needed.
The officers involved in this case must not be allowed to hide behind the institution. Their duty was to assess the scene, identify the real victim and act on the evidence in front of them. Instead, they flinched at the killer’s accusation of racism and treated the the danger of seeming insufficiently sensitive more urgently than the immediate threat of death through loss of blood facing Henry. If someone says he has been stabbed, the first priority is to see to the wellbeing of that person. The seriousness of any injuries decides the priority with which officers treat people, no matter who is the victim or suspect. Although there is no common law duty of care on police officers to protect individuals from harm, they do have such a duty when they have assumed responsibility for an individual – which, in this case, they did when, after arresting Henry they putting him in handcuffs and hoisted him to his feet.
The failure of the officers at the scene was not abstract, theoretical or procedural. It was a personal collapse of judgement with fatal consequences. But it was also the predictable product of a culture that has trained officers to fear ideological wrongthink more than operational failure.
Henry Nowak was murdered by political correctness.
