Police arrest Algerian migrant sex offender who was released from prison by mistake

Algerian sex offender Brahim Kaddour-Cherif has been re-arrested after being accidentally released from HMP Wandsworth a week ago.

The 24-year-old man was serving a sentence for trespassing with intent to steal, but had previously been convicted of indecent exposure.

It was understood that he was not an asylum seeker but was in the process of being deported after his visa expired.

Fellow inmate Billy Smith, 35, who was accidentally released from the same prison on Monday, also turned himself in again.

While Kaddour-Cherif’s arrest will bring relief to the government, it will do little to ease the backlash against David Lammy, who has been branded a ‘coward’ and ‘incompetent’ for his handling of the matter.

The Justice Secretary was criticized by other ministers for refusing to answer questions in the House of Commons about the release of the criminal.

Mr Lammy, who is also Deputy Prime Minister, refused to confirm Kaddour-Cherif’s release at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday.

He was also criticized for not returning to parliament later and explaining the details of what had happened.

Alex Davies-Jones, a junior minister at the Ministry of Justice, was left to be questioned about the scandal during a series of TV and radio interviews on Thursday morning.

A cabinet minister said: Times Mr Lammy’s response to the mistaken release of detainees: ‘This is cowardly. He had to step forward and claim it.

‘I still don’t understand why you haven’t confirmed this or made a statement in the House of Commons. He left the job of making the broadcast tour to a junior minister. It sucks to use.”

Justice Secretary criticized by other ministers for refusing to answer questions in the House of Commons about the release of an Algerian citizen

Brahim Kaddour-Cherif was serving a sentence at HMP Wandsworth for trespass with intent to steal. Has a past conviction for indecent exposure

Another Cabinet minister told the paper the row cast doubt on Mr Lammy’s political ‘judgment’ and ‘aggressive tone’ in the House of Commons.

A third minister said: ‘PLP [Parliamentary Labour Party] They are deeply unhappy. They think the way he handled this situation was terrible. Why can’t he raise his hands?’

A senior government source said: ‘It feels less humiliating’ [of Parliament] The problem is more of a ranking of incompetence and frankly quite dangerous.’

The manhunt for Kaddour-Cherif continues. But another inmate, Billy Smith, 35, who was accidentally released from the same prison on Monday, also turned himself in.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said on Thursday he was ‘angry and disappointed’ at the ‘intolerable’ unfair prisoner releases, despite defending Mr Lammy.

The Justice Minister himself appeared before TV cameras on Thursday afternoon to ask questions about the prisoner release debate.

But Mr Lammy raised further questions when he said Kaddour-Cherif was mistakenly released before new checks were implemented.

This was despite telling MPs last Monday that these checks came into force immediately, two days before the wrongful eviction on 29 October.

Whitehall sources later said the Ministry of Justice was investigating evidence that the errors that triggered Kaddour-Cherif’s release occurred in September.

At PMQs on Wednesday, where he attended in place of Sir Keir, Mr Lammy repeatedly refused to confirm whether any further asylum seekers had been released in error since Hadush Kebatu, the migrant who was at the center of protests in Epping, Essex, and has now been deported.

He told reporters on Thursday that he ‘did not have all the details’ about Kaddour-Cherif’s release when she appeared in the House of Commons.

“We learned this week that the release that caused concern actually happened before I implemented those checks a few weeks ago following the release of Kebatu and the other prisoner was actually a court error, not a prison error,” Mr Lammy added.

The Minister of Justice confirmed on 27 October, two days before Kaddour-Cherif’s release, that stricter release controls would come into effect immediately.

Conservatives accused him of potentially misleading the public.

Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick said: ‘David Lammy either lied or has absolutely no idea what is going on in his department.

‘How can the public trust the Minister of Justice who cannot establish a timeline of events or answer basic questions?’

Housing Minister Steve Reed on Friday morning dismissed criticism from fellow ministers of Mr Lammy as ‘anonymous gossip’.

He told Times Radio: ‘The problem is we have a broken system and when you have a broken system you will see failures.

‘The important thing is to make sure we have a digital system so that no prisoners are released by mistake.

‘There is no acceptable figure for this, but the way to fix this is not to gossip about David Lammy in the papers, but to do the work and invest in digitizing the system.

‘David called the prison governors into his office yesterday, I imagine they were feeling pretty excited considering what was going on.

‘But it was also making sure they had all the support they needed to put in place the much tighter controls that would be required to ensure any repeats of this were to an absolute minimum.’