Henry Nowak's death is a catastrophic failure - but that doesn't mean there is two-tier policing

Message after message, call after call, they were all from police officers.

And they were all furious. Firstly, at the utterly deplorable policing they witnessed in the bodycam footage of police disbelieving and arresting Henry Nowak as he lay before them. Dying.

In 20 years covering crime, I have rarely seen a policing failure as catastrophic and devastating as this.

But what motivated them to call me was when they heard Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK, saying that police are told to treat people differently based on their ethnicity.

Every officer I spoke to - and I spoke with dozens over the course of yesterday - said this was absolute nonsense.

In fact, one of the first things any police recruit is told is to act without fear or favour.

But that hasn’t stopped much of the media and countless commentators from repeating this claim.

It seems to have been born out of two things: Hampshire Police’s Race Action Plan and the National Police Chiefs’ Council’s Anti Racism Commitment guidance.

This published guidance, and many others from several other forces, sets out to rebalance decades of institutional racism by the police.

For generations, people from ethnic minorities have been disproportionately targeted by police forces all over the country.

The Macpherson Report in 1999 - a public enquiry into the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence - was the first public acknowledgement that police are institutionally racist.

Since then, policing has been painfully slow in trying to rectify this. In fact, when you look at the cold hard evidence, they still have some way to go.

You are still four times more likely to be stopped and searched if you are black - another fact completely being ignored.

Critics are blaming the ‘Race Action’ plans for how police dealt with Henry so disgustingly.

The NPCC guidance says: “Producing equality of policing outcomes for people from different ethnic groups by responding to individuals and communities according to their specific needs, circumstances and experiences.”

I’ve read this section several times, and I still don’t know what it means.

The wording is “clumsy”, as the NPCC admits, and police chiefs say they will review the guidance.

But to suggest this means every police officer is now told to treat people differently based on race is inaccurate - and dangerous.

Chief Constable Gavin Stephens, Chair of the NPCC, told LBC the guidance is to ensure that everyone is treated the same, saying: “It is essential that we police without fear or favour.”

The conclusion I’ve reached is that this guidance is either genuinely misunderstood or deliberately being used as propaganda to push an agenda.

The very thing the grieving father of Henry Nowak pleaded not to happen.

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Andy Hughes is LBC's Crime Correspondent.

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