The True Story Behind the Murder of Henry Nowak

How many of you this week looked at your children, if you have them, and thought, "What is this nation, this Britain we have created for you?" I know I certainly did.

Not just as the father of a teenage son, not much younger than Henry Novak, but as a journalist who's seen our system of justice warped beyond recognition by a fiction that racism is only ever a one-way street.

A fiction which for years, and to my shame, I failed to question with the bravery we are called upon to show.

There will be those made uncomfortable with the way Henry Novak's murder has become a punctuation mark in the evolving and torturous story of race relations in Britain.

Some have pointed to the words of his father, who stressed with infinite dignity that his son's death should not be weaponized for the purposes of division.

And watching that family's agonies play out in real time on the courtroom steps in Southampton, it is important that in teasing out what one murder means for society at large, we do not forget the loss that's been endured by a family.

But it is also true that some events and the reaction to them cannot be, should not be, circumscribed by a family's sorrow, no matter how raw.

And I would argue the murder of Henry Novak is one such event.

The principles at stake affect us all because the police serve all of us.

I apologize if this sounds callous, but politicians who invoke the family's name as a means of stifling legitimate debate should not be allowed to stop us from having the candid conversations we need to have right now.

Leaving questions of race and policing to a magic circle of those in the know is one of the reasons we've ended up where we are.

By now, I assume you'll be familiar with Henry's story, so I won't be going over what happened on December the third last year in any detail, nor will I be airing the footage of his final moments.

I've seen it once, and once, as I'm sure you'll agree, is enough.

Let me start by saying this.