Police have launched a manhunt for Hadush Kebatu, the Epping hotel asylum seeker whose sexual assault on a school girl sparked a wave of protests across the UK.
Kebatu was meant to be sent to an immigration detention centre to be deported, but was mistakenly freed.
A senior justice source said: “He has been released in error – this is the mother of all f**k ups. It is down to human error, with the wrong paperwork on it or something,” reports the Sun.
They claimed Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy is aware and “furious”.
The 41-year-old had been jailed on September 23 for 12 months after being found guilty of touching and trying to kiss a schoolgirl in Epping on July 7 and 8.
He was placed on the UK sex offenders’ register for ten years.
His arrest led to a wave of demonstrations outside The Bell Hotel in Epping, where he was staying as an asylum seeker from Ethiopia.
At trial, where he denied all offences, the court heard that he tried to kiss the teenage girl on a bench whilst also asking her to kiss him, and made numerous sexually explicit comments.
The following afternoon, he tried to kiss the same girl before sexually assaulting her, and made further sexually explicit comments despite being told the girl’s age and the fact that she was wearing her school uniform.
Shortly before this interaction, Kebatu had sexually assaulted and attempted to kiss an adult woman who had offered to help him create a CV to find work.
When she then saw Kebatu also interacting inappropriately with the teenage girl, she called 999 and he was arrested.
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