Enhanced checks are to be introduced before prisoners are released in England and Wales, following the mistaken release of a man who sexually assaulted a young girl. Justice Secretary David Lammy is expected to announce a series of measures as he faces questions from MPs over the error.
Hadush Kebatu, an Ethiopian national and former asylum seeker, was wrongly freed from HMP Chelmsford on Friday morning instead of being transferred to an immigration detention centre. He had been living at the Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex, when he sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl. He later travelled to London and was arrested on Sunday morning in Finsbury Park after a two-day manhunt.
The father of Kebatu's teenage victim said he hoped the sex offender would be 'deported immediately'. Mr Lammy said that should happen after he is questioned by police later this week. Communities Secretary Steve Reed told broadcasters he shared the family's 'frustration and fury', conceding the justice system was 'broken'. He said his cabinet colleague would announce 'a strengthened series of checks to make sure this kind of thing doesn't happen again'.
Government figures published in July show 262 prisoners were released in error in the year to March 2025, a 128% increase on 115 in the previous 12 months. Mr Reed attributed the rise to staffing cuts made by the previous Conservative administration. However, Charlie Taylor, the chief inspector of prisons, said he had yet to see the detail of the extra checks and questioned whether they were proportionate. He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'I haven't actually seen the checklist itself. Is it proportionate? Well, we'll have to look at the checklist over the course of this week.'
Mr Lammy has announced an independent inquiry into the case. Chelmsford's Liberal Democrat MP Marie Goldman called for a 'rapid' national investigation, saying the Prison Service had 'several chances to fix it and failed'. A prison officer has been suspended while the investigation takes place. It is understood Kebatu, who crossed the Channel in a small boat on 29 June, left prison with some personal money but was not given a discharge grant. He was convicted of five offences in September, including making inappropriate comments to the teenager and sexually assaulting a woman, and had expressed a 'firm wish' to be deported.
