Henry Nowak's family criticise killer's appeal

Henry Nowak's family say it is "not right" his killer is trying to appeal against his sentence, as the Court of Appeal hears bids to have it cut or increased.

Vickrum Digwa, 23, was jailed for life with a minimum term of 21 years for murdering the 18-year-old student. He argues it is too severe, while the government has asked for it to be reviewed as unduly lenient. Both will be heard on Thursday.

Judges will decide whether to allow either challenge to proceed and, if so, consider the arguments.

The family have also called it a "disgrace" that Digwa's mother, Kiran Kaur, jailed for three years for hiding the knife, may be released early in December.

In an interview with ITV News' UK Editor, Paul Brand, Henry's stepmother, Katie Nowak says: "It just doesn't feel fair to us at all.

"It's another process that we've got to go through. It's another fight that we have to have.

"It was a very clear verdict. It's not right that he's allowed to do this."

Digwa's mother, Kiran Kaur, was sentenced to three years in prison in July for assisting an offender, after she hid the blade Digwa used to kill Henry.

Henry's mother, Lucy Ross told ITV News, "Mother to mother – she is no mother."

"We all protect our children, but we also protect our children from right and wrong."

"But she never did the right thing. She hid the knife, which had Henry's blood on it."

ITV News reported last month that Kaur is expected to be freed in December, after about a year in custody including time on remand.

It's a date that feels "particularly cruel" to the Nowaks, falling around the anniversary of Henry's murder.

Lucy Ross told Paul Brand: "As soon as she gets out, she could arrange a visiting order to go see [Digwa]."

"She's lucky enough that she could go and see her boy. I have to go to Henry's grave to see Henry."

Henry's father, Mark Nowak, echoed this: "It's an absolute disgrace. Let's be honest."

"She'll be out in December of this year having received a three-year sentence. How on earth can that be right?"

"She'll be out for Christmas, and I won't have Christmas with Henry."

Henry's family told ITV News the government needs to seriously rethink its decision to allow Kaur's early release - and the scheme as a whole.

Katie Nowak, Henry's stepmother, says, "I'd say that victims need to have far more weight and thought given to how they feel."

"Because throughout this whole process, it doesn't feel like anyone's on your side."

Under the Sentencing Act 2026, most prisoners serving standard fixed-term sentences are automatically released on licence after a third of their term, rather than 40% or half.

Kaur would serve the rest of it in the community on licence, and could be recalled to prison if she breached her licence conditions.

She spent 221 days on remand, which the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) said was taken into account when she was sentenced.

Her crime of assisting an offender is not one of the offences excluded from changes to the early release scheme.

Kaur is an Indian national, and the Home Office has said it will seek to deport foreign criminals at the first opportunity. No decision on her case has been announced.

Digwa stabbed Henry with a blade he claimed he was carrying for religious reasons linked to his Sikh faith.

Wendy Joseph KC, former judge at the Old Bailey, told the BBC's Today programme: "There's a lot of muddled thinking about this, it is primarily relevant to whether or not you are allowed to carry the blade at all and that's a different offence of which he was also convicted - carrying the blade.

"You have a defence if you have a religious reason for carrying it but you lose that defence as soon as you actually use it as a weapon."

She explained: "Its relevance to murder is different, its relevance to murder is very important because if you have a murder in which someone carries an unlawful weapon to a scene to use it for the purposes of an offence, any offence, and then you do commit a murder with it your starting point after getting life imprisonment is a minimum sentence of 25 years.

"If you have a lawful reason for carrying it and you are not carrying it in order to carry out some sort of offence your starting point is 15 years."

Dear Henry: Our Fight for Justice - A Tonight Special airs on Thursday 5 November at 9pm, on ITV1, ITVX, STV and ITV News YouTube.