A migrant sex offender mistakenly released from prison has claimed he tried to hand himself in to police whilst on the run.
Ethiopian Hadush Kebatu claimed someone bought him an £18 train ticket after he waited for immigration enforcement officers for three hours outside HMP Chelmsford.
The Channel migrant was handed a £500 “bung” to be deported on Tuesday night in another “shameful farce” for the Home Office.
Kebatu threatened, before leaving Wormwood Scrubs and at Heathrow Airport, to claim asylum and exploit Britain’s human rights laws to force his way off Tuesday night’s flight, sparking fears of huge costs to the taxpayer and delays to his deportation.
Critics blasted the £500 payment, declaring that the “vile foreign sex offender” should have been booted out without receiving a penny more of taxpayers’ money.
It comes after the sex offender was mistakenly released from HMP Chelmsford in Essex, when he should have been taken to an immigration removal centre.
Speaking for the first time, the Channel migrant sex offender claimed he tried to hand himself into police, but was ignored.
He said: “I [told] police, look here, police I am wanted man, I am arrested, I will give you my hand, please help where is police station? He ignored me, he drove [off].”
“I am not unknown. The police station, where is the place? But also I go to police, I will give you my hand please help me where is the police station, take me, I am wanted.
“You know me, or my image, my name is Hadush Kebatu, nationality Ethiopia. Please, I was the mistake release from Chelmsford prison. Please help me.”
He claimed that after he was released he waited more than three hours outside the prison, for what he described as someone who was “responsible” for him.
He said: “At that time I am waiting more than three hours… who [is] responsible for me? Where is Home Office, where is [immigration]?
“I was told there was a bus. Also, all the experts, they all ignored me.”
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said: “Keir Starmer wouldn’t rule out raising taxes on hardworking people, while earlier his government handed £500 of your money to a vile foreign sex attacker.
“Hadush Kebatu should have been deported immediately, not released and sent home with pocket money.
“The Conservatives have a serious plan to leave the ECHR and deport all foreign criminals, ensuring that this sort of outrageous waste of taxpayers’ money never happens again.”
She added: “The whole thing is a shameful farce, which just shows Keir Starmer doesn’t have the backbone to deal with our illegal immigration problem.”
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: “The Government should not have needed to pay this illegal immigrant who sexually preyed on a young girl to leave.
“Kebatu should have been immediately and forcibly deported without payment. This money is simply a further insult to the British taxpayer.
“What the government should do is adopt the Conservative plan – by coming out of the ECHR we could deport all illegal immigrants within a week of arriving and deport all foreign criminals.
“This man is both. But the Labour government is too weak to implement a tough plan that will work.”
The asylum seeker, who was being housed at The Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex, was arrested for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl and another woman just days after arriving in the UK on a small boat.
The migrant told two teenagers he wanted to “have a baby with each of them” and attempted to kiss them, before putting his hand on one of the girls’ thighs and stroking her hair, his trial was told.
He was also found to have sexually assaulted a woman by trying to kiss her, putting his hand on her leg and telling her she was pretty.
The Ethiopian was sentenced to 12 months in jail, but because of the time he had served on remand before his trial, he was eligible for immediate deportation under new early removal rules for foreign offenders.
It then took four weeks to negotiate Kebatu’s deportation with Ethiopia.
And a manhunt was launched after the Channel migrant was mistakenly released from HMP Chelmsford instead of being transferred to an immigration removal centre.
Kebatu tried five times to return to the prison but was told to head to the train station instead.
He was spotted in Chelmsford, Stratford and Dalston before being caught in Finsbury Park in North London.
Footage of Kebatu’s eventual arrest shows the sex offender near a bench, where he was apprehended by four officers yards from a children’s play area.
After three days on the run, he was taken back into detention and told he would be deported within days.
And the Ethiopian sex fiend was booked onto the 20:15 Ethiopian Airways flight from Heathrow Airport on Tuesday night.
Kebatu, whose lawyer told his trial that the “sports teacher” wanted to be deported, threatened to change his mind just hours before his flight.
He warned he would file an asylum claim – both before leaving for the airport and whilst at Heathrow Airport – before eventually agreeing to leave after he was offered £500.
The Channel migrant was said to be “compliant” as he walked onto the plane to Addis Ababa.
Funds are usually loaded onto a payment card after an offender has been deported, which can then be used to withdraw cash when they arrive in their homeland..
Downing Street on Wednesday revealed Kebatu had made a last-ditch bid to get an even bigger handout from the Government.
The Prime Minister’s spokesperson said: “We turned down an application from him for the facilitated return scheme, which under successive governments has offered resettlement grants of up to £1,500.
“However, given Kubatu threatened to disrupt the flight, an operational decision was taken to provide a £500 payment to facilitate his return.
“The alternative was a slower and more expensive process for the taxpayer, which would have included detention, a new flight and potentially fighting subsequent legal claims. And the cost of cancelling the flight alone would have run into several thousands of pounds.”
Reform UK’s Head of Policy Zia Yusuf said: “This is an insult of the highest order. We have a government that’s failing to keep its people safe, failing to lock up criminals, and wasting endless amounts of taxpayer money while doing so.
“Reform’s policy is clear: no nonsense, no delay – detain, deport, and restore safety to Britain’s streets.”
Robert Bates, Research Director at the Centre for Migration Control, said: “This farcical affair has concluded in the most pitiful way.
“A government that has lost complete control of our borders forced to beg and bribe a convicted sex offender to return to his country of origin.
“No amount of spin can justify the decision to effectively reward, with a large bung, an illegal migrant who has caused nothing but fear and misery in the few short months he lived here”
Senior Tory Neil O’Brien – “Instead of £500 bungs for foreign sex criminals we should leave the ECHR and ban asylum claims for all illegals. Starmer would rather raise your tax than change the rules so we no longer give bungs to foreign criminals like Hadush Kabatu.”
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said: “Last week’s blunder should never have happened, and I share the public’s anger that it did. I would like to thank the police for rapidly bringing Mr Kebatu into custody and the public for their vigilance.
“I have pulled every lever to deport Mr Kebatu and remove him off British soil. I am pleased to confirm this vile child sex offender has been deported. Our streets are safer because of it.
“If you come to this country and commit crimes, we will remove you.”
Kebatu was only the fourth individual to be returned to Ethiopia this year.
Accidental prison releases have more than doubled in the past year, with a total of 262 recorded in the year to March 2025.
Justice Secretary David Lammy announced that former National Crime Agency Director General Dame Lynne Owens would lead a probe into Kebatu’s disastrous mistaken release.
Initial findings will be reported to Lammy by the end of this week.
The Justice Secretary said: “Kebatu has been returned to Ethiopia where he belongs. I am grateful to Home Office colleagues for acting swiftly to secure his deportation.
“I have been clear from the outset that a mistake of this nature is unacceptable, and we must get to the bottom of what happened. I have established an independent investigation chaired by Dame Lynne Owens into last Friday’s events to get the public the answers they rightly deserve, and we have introduced the strictest checks ever seen in our prison system to stop similar unacceptable errors in future.”