Kiran Kaur, the mother of Henry Nowak's murderer, has been sentenced to three years in prison for assisting an offender after she removed the knife used in the fatal stabbing. The 53-year-old was convicted by the same jurors who found her son Vickrum Digwa guilty of murder and carrying a knife in public following a trial in May.
Judge's condemnation
Sentencing at Southampton Crown Court on Friday, Judge William Mousley KC said Kaur did not act like a 'responsible parent.' He stated: 'A responsible parent would have challenged their son over their actions and encourage them to do the right thing. Instead you took the knife home and put it with a larger collection of ceremonial and other weapons in your son’s bedroom. That would have helped to conceal what it had been used for. This is because you wanted him to avoid being caught.'
The judge highlighted that her actions at Belmont Road before and after taking the dagger away 'added to your son’s pretence that he had done nothing wrong and that he was the victim.' He noted that her role contributed to the 'degradation of Henry being arrested when he was dying.'
The murder and its aftermath
Her son, Vickrum Digwa, 23, was jailed for life last month for murdering Henry Nowak, 18, who died in police handcuffs after a chance encounter in December last year. Digwa stabbed Henry five times with a Sikh kirpan ceremonial knife. The court heard that the knife was recovered after examination of CCTV and determined by police to be the murder weapon about a week after the killing.
Prosecutor Nicholas Lobbenberg KC described Kaur's role as 'crucial' in removing the murder weapon as police arrived. He said: 'The absence of weapon at the scene caused by her actions hampered the police attending who were, as your Honour will recall, confronted with a wall of lies. She chose not to disclose what she had done. Absence of that weapon led to Henry dying terrified, alone and disbelieved, her actions contributed to this.'
Defence arguments
Barrister Mark Watson, defending Kaur, argued that she only became involved after receiving a phone call that her son had been attacked while she was getting ready for bed. He said she was 'equally misled' as Digwa lied to those around him. Watson described her actions as 'spontaneous' rather than calculated, noting that the weapon was not destroyed, cleaned, or hidden. The knife remained in its sheath, he added. 'Offending arose during a moment of panic and human frailty,' he said.
Watson urged the judge to impose a suspended sentence, citing Kaur's role as a pillar of her family and community, including volunteer work. However, Judge Mousley rejected this, stating that when Digwa told her to take the murder weapon, sheath and belt away, 'by then you knew or believed that he had stabbed and injured Henry. Even if you might have believed that your son had been racially abused and assaulted, you knew there could be no justification for him to have stabbed Henry. Your son had no significant injury.'
Sentencing and impact
The judge acknowledged that Kaur is unlikely to reoffend and that her actions were 'mistakenly, to protect your son rather than for any personal gain.' Nevertheless, he concluded: 'However, the seriousness of your offending requires you to be punished and others who might find themselves in a similar situation to be deterred from doing as you did.'
Kaur, who required a Punjabi interpreter, appeared emotional in the dock, drying her eyes with tissues during mitigation. She has spent more than seven months in custody since her arrest. Family members attended the hearing, supporting her from the public gallery.
In the wake of Digwa's case, anger erupted following the release of police body-worn video showing Mr Nowak being placed in handcuffs moments before he became unconscious and died. Violent disorder broke out in Southampton on June 2, with 27 people convicted over the trouble.
