ABIMBOLA JOHNSON: ‘Attacks on police anti-racism commitments are the fallacious classes from Henry Nowak’s homicide’
Abimbola Johnson, chair of the Independent Scrutiny and Oversight Board, has warned attacks on police anti-racism initiatives misrepresent the importance of the measures
Violent protests in Southampton on Tuesday after police bodycam footage was released following Henry Nowak’s murder(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
The current attacks on policing’s Anti-Racism Commitment are not real scrutiny.
They are an attempt to turn policy into a culture-war talking point. (Tory Shadow Home Secretary) Chris Philp argues that “two-tier policing is putting lives at risk”, links Henry Nowak’s murder to other serious cases, and says the Commitment proves that policing has been captured by “extreme activists.”
His description of “two-tier” policing only works by treating any attempt to deal with racial inequality as suspicious in itself. Furthermore, Philp’s criticism would carry more weight if he had engaged with the programme designed for these discussions when he was Policing Minister.
For five years, I chaired the Independent Scrutiny and Oversight Board, which examined the Police Race Action Plan, a national programme meant to improve policing for Black people, particularly around use of powers and force e.g. Black men are seven times more likely to die after police restraint; Black people are five times more likely to have taser used against them; Black children are eight times more likely to be strip searched.
We criticised the Police Race Action Plan often: its pace, structure, metrics, communication and engagement. Anti-racism work should not be insulated from challenge. Philp, on the other hand, did not meet the Race Action Plan team, engage with my Board, or do the hard work of understanding and improving it.
The Police’s Anti-racism Commitment he has taken aim at was then published in March 2025 with a foreword from the Labour Policing Minister, Diana Johnson. If he had real concerns, he could have raised them in office: asked for evidence, challenged the wording and pushed for clearer guidance. He did not.
The Commitment came out of years of work by the Action Plan’s team with anti-racism experts, community voices, policing bodies and scrutiny groups. However imperfectly worded, it tries to answer a real question: how should policing deal with racial inequality without pretending it is not there?
Philp presents the Commitment’s focus on racial equity as a call to treat people differently because of their skin colour. But the passage he relies on actually pushes the police to recognise different needs and experiences, including those shaped by race, in order to reduce harm and act fairly.
If the police failures to Henry Nowak are proved, they point to exactly the kind of poor judgment anti-racist policing is supposed to prevent. Anti-racism aims to make policing more evidence-led and transparent. For example, the programme helped to develop national guidance around the use of body worn video, including the vast majority of forces now recording audio as well as video in their cameras’ pre-record function.
Anti-racism groups and civil society organisations have long challenged poor decisions, weak accountability and the uneven distribution of state harm; they fight against poor policing. INQUEST, for example, has spent decades supporting families after deaths in custody and pushing for reform to restraint, healthcare, crisis response and accountability.
That work is about preventing harm, not excusing it. If officers accepted an untested allegation of racial abuse, failed to assess Henry’s medical needs, or treated him as a suspect when he required protection, that is not anti-racist policing. It is simply poor policing.
It is easier to dismiss “so-called anti-racist campaigners” in a column or by shouting in the Commons than to engage with bereaved families, hard evidence and state harm. The first needs rhetoric; the second, seriousness.
Withdrawing anti-racism commitments because they have been mischaracterised would be the wrong lesson from Henry Nowak’s murder. The proper response to this tragedy is to investigate the police response fully, establish whether there were failures, and make sure officers are better equipped to assess evidence, risk and vulnerability in future.
Those who choose not to engage seriously with this work when they had influence over it should be careful about posing now as its strongest critics. Certainty after the event is easy.
Serious scrutiny is harder.
