The approach of British police to diversity is under intense scrutiny following the murder of Henry Nowak.
As the 18-year-old lay dying, officers handcuffed him and ignored his pleas for help after the Sikh killer who stabbed him five times accused him of racism.
The university student’s murder, which has provoked national uproar, has been described as an example of “two-tier policing” – the notion that ethnic minority individuals receive different treatment from officers in comparison to white Britons.
Mr Nowak’s death is the latest in a line of incidents in which ethnicity, religion or disability have affected how police respond to crime.
Grooming gangs
Grooming gangs have operated in towns and cities across Britain from the 1990s until the present day, abusing thousands of women and girls.
Last year, an audit conducted by Baroness Casey of Blackstock found there was evidence from some cities that a disproportionate number of perpetrators were Pakistani Muslims.
Her audit had found systemic, decades-long failures by authorities to protect children from grooming gangs in England and Wales. In some cases, police forces turned a blind eye to the rings of child abusers over concerns that public knowledge of the scandal would inflame racial tensions.
In 2020, it emerged that a senior South Yorkshire Police officer had admitted the force had known of group-based sexual exploitation of girls by Asian men for 30 years but “we can’t afford for this to be coming out”.
A £65m inquiry into the scandal was announced last year, and Zoë Billingham, one of its panel members, has vowed that it will not “shy away” from evidence that “in some parts of the country the perpetrators are from Asian Pakistani heritage”.
Valdo Calocane
Valdo Calocane killed two 19-year-old students, Grace O’Malley-Kumar and Barnaby Webber, and Ian Coates, a grandfather, in Nottingham in June 2023, and injured two others.
The paranoid schizophrenic was free to kill despite having come to the police’s attention a number of times in the previous three years over a series of violent incidents.
Emma Webber, the mother of Barnaby, has since accused Nottinghamshire Police of “spending far too much time worrying about discrimination and segregation and doing the wrong thing because somebody’s of a certain colour or certain religion”.
She said in March: “If you’re dangerous, you’re dangerous, and it does not matter what colour you are or where you’re from.”
When Calocane embarked on his killings, a warrant for his arrest was active. It had been issued in September 2022 after he failed to appear at a hearing on charges of assaulting an emergency worker.
In May 2023, the month before the attack, he assaulted two fellow warehouse workers. But when Leicestershire Police officers attended the scene, they failed to realise there was an outstanding warrant.
Axel Rudakubana
Axel Rudakubana, the Southport killer, murdered three girls and wounded 10 other children in an attack on a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in July 2024.
The inquiry into the attack found that police had used Rudakubana’s autism to excuse acts of violence in the run-up to the murders.
He had a history of violence, including a conviction in 2020 for actual bodily harm and possession of a bladed article. If he had been arrested by police in March 2022 for possessing a knife on a bus, the Southport attack would not have happened, the inquiry concluded.
The inquiry into the Southport attack found that police had used Rudakubana’s autism to excuse acts of violence – Elizabeth Cook/PA Wire
Elsewhere, it criticised a social worker for accusing a headteacher of racially stereotyping Rudakubana as “a black boy with a knife” when she expressed concerns about his behaviour.
Robert Jenrick, the Reform UK MP, accused the inquiry of not properly assessing the impact of racism fears on how Rudakubana was treated by state authorities.
Sara Sharif
Sara Sharif, 10, was found dead at her home in Woking, Surrey, in August 2023 after being beaten, burned, hooded and strangled.
Urfan Sharif, her 43-year-old father, and Beinash Batool, her 31-year-old stepmother, were sentenced to life in prison in 2024 for her murder after subjecting her to years of “inconceivable cruelty”.
Sara Sharif was found dead at her home after being beaten, burned, hooded and strangled – Surrey Police
A review of her case later found that the family’s neighbours did not report concerns that she was being abused to police because they were scared of being called racist.
“They feared being branded as being racist, especially on social media,” the authors of the report wrote last year. “While understanding their point of view, this is concerning that race was a bar to reporting possible child abuse and it needs to be overcome.”
Had the police been alerted, Sara’s life could have been saved.
Maccabi Tel Aviv
Last November, West Midlands Police banned Israeli fans from watching Maccabi Tel Aviv play at Aston Villa in the Europa League.
The force said the ban was required to avoid violent behaviour by the Israeli club’s supporters after intelligence claimed they had “intentionally targeted Muslim communities” in Amsterdam in 2024 and that some fans were “linked” to the Israel Defense Forces.
A pro-Palestinian demonstration was held near the Aston Villa ground as the team played Maccabi Tel Aviv on Nov 6 – Clive Mason/Getty Images
The ban triggered a public backlash and Craig Guildford, the force’s chief constable, resigned and apologised after being accused of “fabricating evidence” of hooliganism to satisfy a ban “demanded by Islamists”.
The Israeli embassy in London said the ban was “anti-Semitic” and that police had failed to deal with the real threat from radical Islamist groups while issuing Jewish and Israeli people with unnecessarily punitive measures.