Algerian man mistakenly released from HMP Wandsworth arrested

An Algerian sex offender who was mistakenly released from prison has been arrested by police.

Brahim Kaddour-Cherif, 24, was spotted by a member of the public in London’s Finsbury Park area just before 11:30 GMT on Friday.

He was allowed to leave HMP Wandsworth in south London on October 29. Police said they were not told of the error until Tuesday, November 4.

Kaddur-Sharif was one of two men who were mistakenly released separately from prison in the same week. Both are back in custody after William Smith surrendered on Thursday.

The Algerian national was convicted of indecent exposure in November 2024, relating to an incident that occurred in March of the same year.

He was given an 18-month community order and placed on the sex offenders’ register for five years.

The BBC was told that at least four prisoners who were mistakenly released were still at large.

In England and Wales, 262 prisoners were mistakenly released in March this year; This figure was 115 the previous year.

Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick said the unnamed prisoners exposed the “incompetence of this government”.

“It should not be left to journalists to uncover the truth. [Justice Secretary] “David Lammy must finally reveal how many prisoners were accidentally released and how many are still at large.”

A spokesman for the Liberal Democrats said “every resource” should be used to find the prisoners.

Jess Brown-Fuller said: “This is a disgrace and a farce. There should be no need for the media to inform the public about prisoners being released after they were accidentally released.”

The Metropolitan Police said Kaddour-Cherif was spotted by a member of the public near Capital City College on Blackstock Road.

Police officers responded “immediately” and he was arrested at 11:30 a.m., he added.

He was arrested on suspicion of being unlawfully at large and assaulting an emergency worker in connection with a previous incident.

Before being loaded into a police van, he turned to those gathered and said: “Look at justice in the UK, they are releasing people by mistake… it’s not my fault.”

Algerian Nadjib Mekdhia, 50, who is homeless but lives in Finsbury Park, said he saw Kaddour-Cherif as he passed a cafe on Blackstock Road.

“I was in the Algeria cafe. The person approached me. I don’t know what he was doing. I recognized him. I asked a citizen to give me a phone.

“I immediately called the police. Police vans arrived quickly.”

He added: “I’m glad he’s in prison. We don’t need people like that in our society.

“I’m proud to be Algerian. I’m proud to be British. We’re doing the right thing.”

Deelo Morgenegg, who witnessed the arrest, told the BBC he saw an “argument” between Kaddour-Cherif and a person who knew the prisoner who was mistakenly released.

Police later arrived and questioned him, adding: “Things started to escalate and they eventually handcuffed him.”

Mr Morgenegg said that when Kaddour-Cherif was put into the police van he “started kicking the van and kind of shaking and stomping”.

Kaddour-Cherif is understood to have entered the UK legally on a visitor visa in 2019, but has overstayed his time and is in the early stages of deportation.

He was released the day after he was found not guilty of violating the requirements of the sex offender registry; but he still faced other charges and was required to remain in custody.

Prison officers’ representatives said the typo meant there was no court order to detain him and he was released.

followed a series of prosecutions and court hearings It dates back to two years ago.

William Smith, the second man to be released from HMP Wandsworth last week, surrendered on Thursday. He was released on Monday after being sentenced to prison earlier that day.

Their release comes just weeks after migrant sex offender Hadush Kebatu, who arrived in the UK on a small boat, was mistakenly released from HMP Chelmsford in Essex in late October.

Sources told the BBC that the warden of Wandsworth prison was not in prison on the day Kaddour-Cherif was released because he was handling the investigation into how Kebatu was released.

Prisoner captured just three minutes’ walk away Where Kebatu was re-arrested.

In a statement following Friday’s arrest, Lammy said: “We have inherited a prison system in crisis and I am appalled by the erroneous release rates this has caused.

“I am determined to tackle this problem, but it cannot be solved overnight, there is a mountain to climb.

“So I ordered strict new release controls, launched an independent investigation into systemic failures and began overhauling the old paper-based systems still used in some prisons.”

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said Lammy “didn’t know what he was doing”.

Reacting to footage of Kaddour-Cherif’s arrest, he said: “These people are making a mockery of our justice system. They clearly think the UK is a soft touch and the government should take control of the situation.”

“I also thought it was extraordinary that the justice secretary was wandering around just outside his own constituency. They’re laughing at us and what the Labor government needs to do is show they will enforce our laws.”

Lammy under fire for faulty publications after promising the “strongest controls ever” to prevent similar mistakes following the Kebatu case.

The new controls bring more responsibility to the governor on duty, who is responsible for prison security. They will now have to oversee the release of all prisoners, do more checks and calculations, and fill out more paperwork.

But these checks pose a “significant burden” and “merely add to the paperwork”, according to a senior prison official.

“It now takes a day in some cases to complete checks to release someone, which is not very helpful when it comes to staffing issues,” they said.

Prisons have been in crisis for several years. The population continued to increase because the number of personnel could not keep up with the number of prisoners.

Last summer, there were only about a hundred places available in men’s prisons. This triggered the government’s emergency evacuation plan; where some prisoners would be released after serving 40% of their fixed-term sentences instead of the normal 50%. Almost 40,000 prisoners have already been released under this scheme, which was introduced to reduce overcrowding.

But this was also reflected in the number of erroneous publications.

While the government has promised to build more prisons to reduce overcrowding, there are also predictions that show the prison population will continue to rise. However, this will take time and is not an instant solution.

Additional reporting by Theo Whyte and Alex Forster