R v Digwa: Sentencing, the Kirpan and the Limits of an Attorney General’s Reference
Imran Khan & Partners acted for Vickrum Singh Digwa in significant Court of Appeal proceedings concerning murder sentencing, the lawful carrying of a Kirpan for religious reasons, and the proper limits of the unduly lenient sentence jurisdiction.
On 5 November 2026, the Court of Appeal, constituted by Lady Carr, the Lady Chief Justice, Mr Justice Nicklin and Mr Justice Wall, handed down judgment in R v Vickrum Singh Digwa [2026] EWCA Crim 1429. Imran Khan KC, instructed by Imran Khan & Partners, appeared for Mr Digwa, together with Annabel Timan of Doughty Street Chambers.
The case arose from the death of 18-year-old Henry Nowak in Southampton on 3 December 2025. Mr Digwa, then aged 22, was convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 21 years.
Two appeals pointing in opposite directions
What made the proceedings legally unusual was that Mr Digwa’s sentence was simultaneously being challenged from both directions.
The Attorney General maintained that the 21-year minimum term was unduly lenient. Mr Digwa, by contrast, sought permission to appeal on the basis that aspects of the sentencing exercise made the term manifestly excessive.
Imran Khan & Partners’ central submission was that those were legally distinct jurisdictions requiring different tests. Our written advocacy had stressed precisely that point: resisting an Attorney General’s Reference did not require Mr Digwa to abandon his own contention that errors had been made in the sentencing exercise.
That distinction matters.
The Court expressly agreed that the two applications had to be considered separately. The rejection of an offender’s contention that a sentence is manifestly excessive does not establish that it is unduly lenient. Equally, the fact that the Court of Appeal itself might have imposed a longer sentence is not sufficient to justify intervention under section 36 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988.
That is an important restatement of the constitutional restraint built into the Attorney General’s Reference jurisdiction.
The Kirpan and religious observance
One of the most difficult features of the case concerned the Kirpan carried by Mr Digwa as part of his Sikh faith.
The defence was concerned to maintain an important distinction: lawful religious observance cannot itself become an aggravating feature simply because an article lawfully carried for religious reasons is subsequently misused.
Our submissions warned against conflating Sikh religious observance with criminality. Parliament has expressly recognised possession of a bladed article for religious reasons within section 139(5)(b) of the Criminal Justice Act 1988. The defence submitted that treating lawful religious carriage itself as aggravating risked characterising the Sikh community's recognised religious practice as inherently dangerous or suspect.
The Court accepted an important part of that argument.
It held that the sentencing judge had been entitled to adopt the 15-year statutory starting point, rather than the 25-year starting point applicable where an offender takes a knife to the scene intending to commit an offence or to have it available as a weapon. The judge’s finding that Mr Digwa had not taken the Kirpan to the scene for that purpose was properly open to him.
More significantly, the Court stated unequivocally:
“The religious reason for the initial carriage of the large Kirpan was not an aggravating factor.”
That clarification has significance beyond this individual case.
The Court nevertheless held that once a lawfully carried weapon is actually used to kill, its size, dangerousness, immediate availability and lethal use can properly bear heavily upon culpability. Lawful possession does not immunise the subsequent use of the weapon from proper consideration in sentencing.
The distinction is a principled one: religious observance is not the aggravation; the criminal use of the weapon is.
Drawing the line between legitimate aggravation and impermissible punishment
The defence also challenged the accumulation of aggravating features relied upon below. Our submissions addressed, among other matters, vulnerability, community impact and publicity, the treatment of the Kirpan, post-offence behaviour, and the danger of double counting interconnected features.
Again, although the Court ultimately increased the sentence, a number of those legal arguments were accepted.
The Court held that three matters relied upon below were not properly capable of constituting aggravating features:
the unanticipated and unintended community impact of the offence;
Henry Nowak’s vulnerability merely by reason of being an 18-year-old unarmed man, as opposed to being particularly vulnerable; and
alleged dishonour to the Sikh religion, or increased hostility or fear experienced by members of the Sikh community as a result of the offence.
The last point is particularly important. Criminal punishment is imposed for the conduct of the offender. It should not be increased because of hostility, prejudice or reaction generated in third parties.
That reflects the broader principle advanced in our submissions that public controversy, political comment and media reaction cannot substitute for principled sentencing.
The racial-abuse allegation
A further difficult evidential issue concerned Mr Digwa’s allegation that Mr Nowak had racially abused him.
The defence referred to contemporaneous evidence predating the later preparation of the defence case, including Mr Digwa saying that he had been attacked, the removal of his turban, and contemporaneous assertions of a racial element.
The Court said it understood why the sentencing judge had concluded that the allegation of racial abuse was false, but importantly decided that it was unnecessary to determine that question. Even leaving the alleged false allegation entirely out of account did not alter the Court’s assessment of the appropriate minimum term.
This illustrates an important feature of appellate advocacy: identifying which factual disputes genuinely determine the legal outcome, and which do not.
The outcome
Ultimately, the Court refused Mr Digwa permission to appeal against sentence and allowed the Attorney General’s Reference.
It concluded that an appropriate minimum term would have been at least 25 years. Applying the high threshold governing Attorney General’s References, the Court nevertheless found that 21 years fell outside the range reasonably open to the sentencing judge. The minimum term was therefore increased from 21 to 25 years, less 175 days spent on remand, giving an operative minimum term of 24 years and 190 days.
The judgment makes equally clear that the minimum term is not a release date. It is the period that must be served before the Parole Board can consider whether release would be safe.
Why the case matters
The result went against our client. But important appellate cases are not properly understood simply by asking who “won”.
R v Digwa contains significant guidance on:
the high threshold governing an Attorney General’s Reference;
the distinction between a sentence that an appellate court considers lenient and one that is unduly lenient;
the operation of the 15 and 25-year starting points under Schedule 21 to the Sentencing Act 2020;
the sentencing significance of a weapon that was initially carried lawfully;
the protection that must be afforded to legitimate Sikh religious observance;
the distinction between religious practice and subsequent criminal misuse;
the proper identification of aggravating factors; and
the danger of allowing community reaction, publicity or consequences for a religious community to become additional punishment of the individual offender.
For Imran Khan & Partners, the case demonstrates the importance of forensic appellate advocacy even in the most difficult and publicly scrutinised cases.
Effective representation does not depend upon presenting an easy case. It requires identifying the precise limits of the law, testing factual findings against the evidence, separating legitimate aggravation from impermissible considerations, and ensuring that defendants receive the same rigorous application of legal principle as anyone else.
That is particularly important where criminal law intersects with religious freedom, public controversy and intense media scrutiny.
That distinction lies at the heart of the rule of law, and at the heart of the work we do.
Representation note: Imran Khan & Partners acted for Vickrum Singh Digwa. Imran Khan KC, instructed by Imran Khan & Partners, appeared with Annabel Timan of Doughty Street Chambers in the Court of Appeal. The authoritative judgment is R v Digwa [2026] EWCA Crim 1429.
Source: Court of Appeal judgment, R v Vickrum Singh Digwa [2026] EWCA Crim 1429, handed down 5 November 2026.
