Latest / The Front / Pure, cold rage: are politicians exploiting white teen’s murder?

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Pure, cold rage: are politicians exploiting white teen’s murder? · The Front

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Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
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Speaker 1: It's Friday, June five, twenty twenty six. The budget's controversial
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Speaker 1: tax reforms were necessary to stop Australia sliding into the
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Speaker 1: kind of social dislocation happening overseas. That's what Anthony Albanesi
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Speaker 1: will tell today's Australia's Economic Outlook Forum in Sydney. You
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Speaker 1: can watch all the power players live on Sky News
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Speaker 1: and the Australian dot com dot a U. An eighteen
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Speaker 1: year old white boy was treated by police as a
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Speaker 1: racist and a liar as he lay dying from stab
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Speaker 1: wounds on a Southampton street, his cries of I can't
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Speaker 1: breathe ignored. Across Britain, communities have reacted to body worn
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Speaker 1: footage of Henry Novak's last moments with grief and fury,
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Speaker 1: and as politicians seek to voice and exploit Britain's outrage.
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Speaker 1: Jacqueline Magne joins US from London. Jacqueline Magnee is The
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Speaker 1: Australian's europe correspondent and she's covering a story that has
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Speaker 1: absolutely gripped Britain and the world. It's the murder of
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Speaker 1: an eighteen year old boy Henry Novak and the fallout
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Speaker 1: after that. Jack tell me who was Henry Novak and
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Speaker 1: what happened to him?
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Speaker 2: Well, Henry Novak was an accounting student, had just started
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Speaker 2: at University of Southampton and he just finished his first
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Speaker 2: term and was celebrating that with some of his football mates.
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Speaker 2: He dressed up in a lovely crisp white shirt and
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Speaker 2: a tie and went and met them at a pub
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Speaker 2: at a nearby pub in Southampton. He was not a
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Speaker 2: heavy drinker. He had a few drinks. They went to
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Speaker 2: two different pubs and then he walked home just after
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Speaker 2: eleven o'clock at night. As he was walking home, he
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Speaker 2: was singing and sending messages on Snapchat to his friends.
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Speaker 2: So he was in a great mood, having a jovial time.
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Speaker 2: And it was there that he was heading back to
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Speaker 2: his residences at the university where he encountered a man
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Speaker 2: who was wearing quite a large knife around his midriff,
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Speaker 2: a Sikh man wearing a turban. He saw this man
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Speaker 2: and he said to him, you were bad man, in
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Speaker 2: reference to him wearing this very large knife. The two
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Speaker 2: then had a bit of a discussion about the bad
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Speaker 2: man and then the audio recording finishes, and it's at
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Speaker 2: that point that he was stabbed at least five times,
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Speaker 2: twice in the chest, twice in the legs, once in
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Speaker 2: the groin, and also had facial lacerations and some defense wounds.
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Speaker 2: So he was attacked, he tried to get away. He
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Speaker 2: clambered onto quite a large bin nearby, and then he
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Speaker 2: also tried to get over a fence and this was
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Speaker 2: recorded on mobile phone footage of the sick Maam called
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Speaker 2: Vikram Digua. He was recording this as Henry was trying
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Speaker 2: to escape. Of course, Henry with his injuries, couldn't get
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Speaker 2: very far at all. And then there's a series of
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Speaker 2: phone calls that were made by Digua, who rang his
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Speaker 2: brother who lived just around the corner and his father,
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Speaker 2: and then they turned up. At that point, Digwa claimed
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Speaker 2: to his family that he'd been racially abused, and so
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Speaker 2: the brother rang the police and told them that this
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Speaker 2: white man had been abusing his brother and had attacked
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Speaker 2: his brother. And that's when the police arrived soon after,
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Speaker 2: and they didn't believe Henry Novak about his injuries.
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Speaker 3: Stuff to whereabouts.
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Speaker 2: He repeatedly told them he'd been stabbed. He repeatedly told
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Speaker 2: them he couldn't breathe, and yet they persisted in handcuffing him,
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Speaker 2: dragging him along the ground, and disbelieving him about the
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Speaker 2: fact that he had been stabbed.
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Speaker 1: It's incredibly distressing footage to see Henry Novak dying as
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Speaker 1: the police disbelieve his claim that he's been stabbed.
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Speaker 2: In the face. But we have to check in the face.
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Speaker 3: His pupils aren't even reacting.
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Speaker 1: Is there a feeling in Britain that the officers were
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Speaker 1: treating him differently because he was white?
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Speaker 2: Absolutely, and there are certain things here that we can see.
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Speaker 2: He was handcuffed for a start, even though he posed
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Speaker 2: no resistance whatsoever.
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Speaker 3: What's your name, mate, By the moment you are underrest,
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Speaker 3: that's results. You don't have to say if they mayhamed defence,
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Speaker 3: if you do not make your own question later trilin
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Speaker 3: or anything you do say maybe given an evidence, all right,
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Speaker 3: it's going to be sick. I think.
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Speaker 2: That he was disbelieved and there didn't seem at the
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Speaker 2: very outset to be any attempt to check whether he
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Speaker 2: did have any injuries. Later, of course they did check,
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Speaker 2: but it goes to the heart of the police in
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Speaker 2: Britain have had many instances where they've been accused of
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Speaker 2: two tier policing, of treating people of a different race
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Speaker 2: in a different manner, and so when this has occurred
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Speaker 2: in such a visual and distressing way, people readily identify
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Speaker 2: that this was a case of two tier policing. They
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Speaker 2: don't believe the police when they say that if the
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Speaker 2: situation was reversed it would have been treated any differently.
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Speaker 2: They definitely don't believe that. So the police can say
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Speaker 2: there is no two tier policing, but the fact is
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Speaker 2: no one in Britain believes them.
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Speaker 1: When he was dying, Henry Novak was saying, I can't breathe. That,
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Speaker 1: of course, is the phrase made famous in the murder
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Speaker 1: of George Floyd, the American man who died in the
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Speaker 1: custody of police, triggering the global movement Black Lives Matter.
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Speaker 4: Defying lockdown measures or foregoing government's advice. Still, they came
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Speaker 4: in the hundreds of thousands called in for an ends
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Speaker 4: to police brutality and institutional racism.
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Speaker 1: Black Lives Matter had a big impact in Britain as well,
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Speaker 1: and politicians now, particularly Kemmy Badanock and perhaps also Nigel
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Speaker 1: Farage are saying that the Black Lives Matter movement kind
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Speaker 1: of reshape policing in Britain and made it go too far.
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Speaker 1: Let's talk about that, Jack.
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Speaker 2: It's written down in black and white. It's not just
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Speaker 2: a nebulous concept. With the National Police Chiefs Council, they
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Speaker 2: have as official guidance that policing is not color blind,
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Speaker 2: that they are to treat different racial communities in different
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Speaker 2: ways and to be conscious of various different cultural norms.
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Speaker 2: And we can see this in the fact that the
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Speaker 2: Sikhs are allowed to wear knives around the community, where
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Speaker 2: other people would be arrested for such a thing. And
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Speaker 2: so you've got different races and different ethnicities being treated
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Speaker 2: in a different way by policing. And you've also got
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Speaker 2: the police being trained about unconscious bias about being white.
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Speaker 2: You are racist if you are white. There is a
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Speaker 2: lot of backlash going on now and introspection about all
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Speaker 2: the documentation about all the training that police officers have
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Speaker 2: to go through that people fear that they're being brainwashed,
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Speaker 2: that they can't go to a crime scene and objectively
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Speaker 2: look at it and assess it for what is in
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Speaker 2: front of them. Instead, they're worried about being accused of
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Speaker 2: being racist if they don't treat any of the perpetrators
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Speaker 2: or any of the victims in what is seen to
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Speaker 2: be in an appropriate way.
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Speaker 1: He is Hampshire Police's Chief Constable Alexis Boone.
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Speaker 5: It's difficult footage to watch and I really feel for
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Speaker 5: the family of Henry at this time, and I understand
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Speaker 5: their point of view and why they're upset with the police.
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Speaker 5: I understand that, and we get that we are saying
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Speaker 5: sorry for handcuffing and arresting Henry. Were genuinely saying that.
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Speaker 5: And you know, I hope the conviction of the killer
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Speaker 5: in court is at least some know, some comfort to
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Speaker 5: the family.
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Speaker 1: You wrote a great piece for The Australian in recent days, Jack,
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Speaker 1: kind of drawing together all the threads of examples of
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Speaker 1: police misconduct or policy which have made Britain's feel that
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Speaker 1: they've lost faith in law enforcement. The murder and rape
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Speaker 1: of Sarah Everard, the heavy handed police response to women
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Speaker 1: who were grieving her death after she was murdered by
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Speaker 1: a serving police officer.
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Speaker 6: A vigil turns violent sirens and screaming as the memorial
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Speaker 6: for a woman allegedly murdered by a policeman is disrupted
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Speaker 6: by the police.
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Speaker 1: Other incidents where police seemed to have failed to properly
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Speaker 1: pursue matters where there was racial sensitivity. And one of
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Speaker 1: the things you raised was this idea of nonviolent hate
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Speaker 1: crimes which have been prosecuted by British police. What is
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Speaker 1: a nonviolent hate crime and why has that contributed to
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Speaker 1: this sense of police misconduct.
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Speaker 2: A nonviolent hate crime is a perceived crime. It's a
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Speaker 2: complaint by somebody about another person that they feel aggrieved,
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Speaker 2: and so the police are drawn into minor trivial matters
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Speaker 2: such as an online tweet or a complaint being made
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Speaker 2: to a school about a parent, or a complaint being
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Speaker 2: made to a school about a teacher and their behavior.
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Speaker 2: Suddenly the police are called in because they're being accused
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Speaker 2: of a hate crime against somebody. Now this is actually
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Speaker 2: being phased out, and certainly the parameters for it being
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Speaker 2: a hate crime have ratcheted up because it was so
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Speaker 2: ridiculous where you would have five or six officers arriving
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Speaker 2: at the front door of an elderly person's house because
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Speaker 2: they'd responded to a Facebook post with a like or something,
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Speaker 2: and someone has taken offense at that, so it really
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Speaker 2: caused a lot of miste us in the police that
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Speaker 2: they didn't have the priorities right when people's burglaries and
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Speaker 2: normal everyday crime where mobile phone theft is out of
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Speaker 2: control in this country and it wasn't being addressed, and
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Speaker 2: so there is a lot of distrust about the priorities
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Speaker 2: of the police that they're too scared to actually go
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Speaker 2: after the real criminals and instead sit behind a desk
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Speaker 2: and look at what is the easy way out here
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Speaker 2: to get their numbers up, and let's just look at
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Speaker 2: a complaint about somebody saying a few hurdy words. So
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Speaker 2: that's been happening over the last few years and there
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Speaker 2: has been a real backlash against it because the community
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Speaker 2: feels that it's really inappropriate to have the police stepping
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Speaker 2: in and involving themselves in these kind of matters, especially
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Speaker 2: when real crime is just being let go.
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Speaker 1: The politician who seems to have been able most articulately
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Speaker 1: to respond to the Henry Novak murder is Nigel Farage.
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Speaker 1: He's spoken very clearly about why Britain is very angry
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Speaker 1: about this kind of policing.
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Speaker 7: Henry's family have responded to this in just the most
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Speaker 7: extraordinarily dignified way. But I suggest the rest of us
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Speaker 7: respond to this with pure cold rage. This is wrong.
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Speaker 1: Kimmy Badnock from the Conservative Party has also been very
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Speaker 1: articulate on it.
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Speaker 8: The circumstances around Henry's wrongful arrest and tragic murder must
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Speaker 8: be a wake up call to the entire country and
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Speaker 8: our institutions that every life matters and it is the
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Speaker 8: responsibility of everyone in this house to bring people together,
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Speaker 8: not divide them.
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Speaker 1: Keith stalmart who is himself a former Crown prosecutor, has
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Speaker 1: seemed emotionally empathetic, but perhaps a little flat footed. Jack.
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Speaker 9: This is a time for serious work, not rage. And
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Speaker 9: let me be clear, we will or anyone found engaging
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Speaker 9: in disorder meets the full force of the law, as
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Speaker 9: we have done before.
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Speaker 1: What's your assessment of how this is playing out in politics?
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Speaker 1: Do you think this has been weaponized by politicians for
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Speaker 1: their own purposes and where will it actually take us.
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Speaker 2: It's absolutely being reapgnized by everybody. But it's interesting how
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Speaker 2: Nigel Farage got on the front foot very quickly and
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Speaker 2: really touched on the public mood and the public anger,
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Speaker 2: and he spoke about this having a pure cold rage
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Speaker 2: about what had gone on.
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Speaker 1: Protesters clashed with officers amid massive anger at Hamish's police
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Speaker 1: handling of the case.
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Speaker 2: Now that's been picked up by other politicians who've accused
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Speaker 2: him of inciting violence, and Keir Starmer today even said
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Speaker 2: that it was unforgivable for Nigel Fera to be using
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Speaker 2: such words, accusing him of inciting racial division. Most people
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Speaker 2: in the street don't believe Kis Starmer. He has really
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Speaker 2: doesn't have any authority anymore. He's lost the room. And
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Speaker 2: so you have Kemi Badenknock now saying everybody's lives matter,
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Speaker 2: you have Nigel Farrage saying white lives matter, and then
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Speaker 2: you have Kis Starmer basically trying to obfuscate and change
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Speaker 2: the direction of the debate in saying we shouldn't be
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Speaker 2: talking about this because the family don't want us to
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Speaker 2: cause divisions, and so by hiding behind the family, Kiirs
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Speaker 2: Starmer has kicked another wrong goal there. He's not reading
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Speaker 2: the room. But people really don't believe what he says
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Speaker 2: anyway anymore. So it's really coming down to Nigel Farrage
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Speaker 2: about Kemmy Badennock's response and what the police doing about this,
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Speaker 2: and they are actually doing a review of their policing
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Speaker 2: recommendations about this and working out whether that wording needs
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Speaker 2: to be changed, about the whole issue of racism and
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Speaker 2: treating different races differently, whether the policing is color blind
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Speaker 2: or not. So there are changes foot behind the scenes,
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Speaker 2: but politically the debate is becoming a bit messy.
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Speaker 1: Jack, just finally, you're a Londoner. You've lived in Britain
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Speaker 1: for a long time, You've been reporting for The Australian
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Speaker 1: for a long time on all aspects of British society.
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Speaker 1: It all seems so bleak from here. It seems very dark,
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Speaker 1: as labor kind of stumbles its way around, reform zooms
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Speaker 1: up in the polls and thrashes the government at council elections.
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Speaker 1: The Conservatives seem to be lost. Can you give me
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Speaker 1: a ray of light about Britain? Is there something in
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Speaker 1: Britain right now that's making people happy and lifting the
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Speaker 1: mood or do you feel it is more bleak?
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Speaker 2: It is bleak, but the sun has been shining lately
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Speaker 2: and it's been lovely and warm, and we've had a
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Speaker 2: little bit of rain to keep the plants happy.
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Speaker 1: So I guess we've got Wimbledon to look forward to
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Speaker 1: do well exactly.
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Speaker 2: The tennis season's coming up, some is coming up, Pims
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Speaker 2: at Wimbledon. What more could you ask for?
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Speaker 1: Thanks Jack. That makes me feel a little bit better.
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Speaker 7: Thanks.
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Speaker 1: Jacqueline Magnee is The Australian's europe correspondent. You can read
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Speaker 1: all her reporting and analysis from the UK and beyond
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Speaker 1: right now at the Australian dot com dot au