Latest figures show a shocking rise in accidental prison releases while under Labour’s watch. The number of releases in error shot up by 128% to an alarming 262 prisoners in the year ending March 2025.
The Government, in particular Deputy PM and Justice Secretary David Lammy, is under growing pressure over its handling of the prison system following a disastrous two weeks in which two convicted migrant sex offenders were mistakenly freed. Figures published by the Home Office in July show accidental releases in the 12 months up to March this year are at the highest out of all 19 years listed in the data.
The number of accidental releases had been steadily increasing from 2021 to 2022, but more than doubled from 115 in 2023 2024 to 262 in 2024 2025.
Between 2006-2007 and 2023-2024, the average number of accidental releases per year was just under 60, approximately 339% less than in the year up to March.
Of the 262 accidentally released in the latest period, 233 occurred from prisons, while 29 were released in error at courts.
In the data report, it was noted that releases in error remain “infrequent”.
It said the rise is “believed to be linked to the requirement on Offender Management Units to digest and implement a range of operational and legislative changes”.
The document also identified accidental releases due to an issue in the first tranche of Labour’s early release scheme as a factor.
The problem was swiftly identified and corrected with legislation, it added.
All those freed in error were subsequently rearrested and returned to custody, the document stated.
Labour did not come into power until July 2024, and the document does not provide a monthly breakdown of the accidental releases.
The issue was plunged into the spotlight after Epping hotel migrant Hadush Kebatu was wrongly freed from HMP Chelmsford in Essex on October 24.
The Ethiopian national, who was supposed to have been sent to an immigration detention centre ahead of being deported, was jailed for 12 months in September for the sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl.
His initial arrest led to huge protests and counter-protests outside The Bell Hotel in Epping, where he had been staying, and eventually outside other hotels housing asylum seekers across the country.
After a three-day manhunt, he was eventually re-arrested and has since been deported back to Ethiopia.
Following the debacle, Mr Lammy said he had taken “immediate action to introduce the strongest release checks ever” and that an independent investigation had been set up to establish what went wrong.
However, it emerged on Wednesday that a second migrant sex offender has been released by mistake.
Police are trying to track down Algerian national Brahim Kaddour-Cherif, 24, mistakenly released from HMP Wandsworth just five days after Kebatu.
He was serving a sentence at Wandsworth in south-west London for trespass with intent to steal, but had previously also been convicted for indecent exposure.
He was freed from the prison, which was put into special measures last year, on October 29, but the mistake was only reported to the Metropolitan Police on Tuesday, the force said.
The Algerian national is understood not to be an asylum seeker, but is in the process of being deported after he overstayed his visa.
Another inmate from HMP Wandsworth who was wrongly released from the prison earlier this week has since handed himself back in.
William ‘Billy’ Smith, 35, returned to the jail on Thursday morning and was pictured smoking a cigarette moments before walking through the doors of the Category B men’s prison in south-west London.
Mr Lammy is under fire after reports emerged which suggested he was aware of Kaddour-Cherif’s release and had prepared to address it when he filled in for Sir Keir Starmer at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, but did not.
The story broke as PMQs were ending, and a comment released on Mr Lammy’s behalf said he was “absolutely outraged” over Kaddour-Cherif’s release.
Defending the Labour frontbencher, a Ministry of Justice spokesman said: “The crisis in the prison system this Government inherited is such that basic information about individual cases can take unacceptably long to reach ministers.
“On entering the House, facts were still emerging about the case and the DPM (Deputy Prime Minister) had not been accurately informed of key details including the offender’s immigration status.”