A man convicted of murdering 18-year-old Henry Novak in a Southampton stabbing has been jailed for life with a minimum of 21 years.Vickrum Digwa, 23, was sentenced after a jury found him guilty of the December 2025 killing. Digwa, who was armed with a 21cm blade which he said was part of his Sikh faith, denied murder and claimed he acted in self-defence, but the jury rejected his claim.Henry was an English-Polish teenager from Chalford Hundred, Essex. He was studying accounting and finance at the University of Southampton and had recently completed his first term when he was killed.The attack took place on Belmont Road in the Portswood area of Southampton at around 11.30pm on December 3, 2025.Prosecutors said the conflict between the two men escalated when they passed each other on the sidewalk as Henry returned to the residence after a night out.During the trial, Digueva claimed the teenager appeared drunk, became aggressive and used a racial slur. He also claimed that during the confrontation, Henry punched him, pulled off his hood and then reached for the blade.Jurors rejected Digwa’s self-defence argument and found him guilty of murder and carrying a knife in public.The court heard Henry was stabbed multiple times and tried to escape by climbing over a fence before collapsing to the ground.Digwa’s mother Kiran Kaur, 53, was also found guilty of being an accessory to an offence, with prosecutors saying she removed the weapon from the scene.
