Four more mistakenly-released prisoners at large – after manhunt for sex offender ends with arrest
Following a manhunt that resulted in the capture of a wrongly released sex offender, four more wrongly released inmates have been freed.
The government is under increasing pressure after reports emerged that escaped prisoners were among 262 prisoners mistakenly released in England and Wales by March 2025.
On Friday, Brahim Kaddour-Cherif, 24, was arrested in Islington, north London, after he was spotted by a member of the public following a nine-day manhunt. The Algerian national, who was convicted of theft and had previous convictions for indecent exposure, was serving a sentence at HMP Wandsworth in south-west London but was mistakenly released on October 29.
Justice Secretary David Lammy admitted there was a “mountain to climb” to tackle the prison system crisis following the 24-year-old’s arrest. Wrongful release marks just one of many high-profile cases in which criminals have been released by mistake. Another fraudster, Billy Smith (35), surrendered on Thursday.
And now the BBC has reported that four other prisoners are still at large, in revelations that emerged just hours after Kaddour-Cherif’s arrest.
In response to the reports, a Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: Independent: “The vast majority of wrongfully released criminals are brought back to prison quickly, and we will do everything we can to work with the police to capture the few who are still in the community. These cases further highlight the scale of the crisis we have inherited in our prisons. This will not be solved overnight, but we are using every tool possible to tackle these mistakes.”
During his arrest, Kaddour-Cherif tried to claim that he was someone else. The officer said: “We’ll do a few more checks because you look exactly like that person. I looked at the photo and you have a very distinctive crooked nose that looks the same as that person.”
Nadjib Mekdhia, who is also Algerian, claimed that he called the police after seeing Kaddour-Cherif and told them he was “glad he was in prison.”
Mr Mekdhia, 50, who is homeless and lives in Finsbury Park, north London, said he recognized the prisoner from a newspaper photograph.
Mr Lammy said: “I can confirm that Brahim Kaddour-Cherif has been recaptured and is back in custody. I would like to thank the police and HMPPS staff who worked around the clock.”
“We have inherited a prison system in crisis and I am appalled by the erroneous release rates this has caused. “I am committed to solving this problem, but there is a mountain to climb that cannot be solved overnight.
“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.”
This follows the mistaken release of migrant Hadush Kebatu from HMP Chelmsford on October 24. Following the blunder in the Kebatu case, tighter security checks were introduced in prisons and an independent investigation into mistaken releases was launched.
An Epping immigrant jailed for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl and a woman was mistakenly released from prison last month rather than being sent to an immigration detention centre. It was followed later.
Shortly before news of the latest incident broke, Mr Lammy was asked in the House of Commons whether any other asylum seekers had been released by mistake since Kebatu. The deputy prime minister, who also serves as justice minister, refused to confirm the question when asked four times.
It is understood that Kaddour-Cherif is not an asylum seeker but is in the process of being deported after his visa expired.
The latest errors were blamed on typographical errors in a system under “relentless pressure”.
Housing minister Steve Reed 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 prisoner is 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 newspapers, but to get down to business, do the work and invest in digitizing the system.
“David called the prison governors into his office yesterday, I imagine they were feeling quite nervous given what was going on, but he was also making sure they had all the support they needed to carry out the much tighter checks that would be required to make sure any repeats of this were to a minimum.”
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said: “This case epitomizes the complete breakdown of law and order under Calamity Lammy. A foreign sex offender who should be deported is wandering the streets of London because Labor can’t even keep track of his prisoners. He should be deported immediately as soon as his sentence is finished.”
“The British public should not be the ones catching fugitive criminals. This is chaos, incompetence and complete weakness and puts people’s safety at risk.”
“Labour does not have the backbone to take over law and order. Only the Conservative Party has a common-sense, hard-edged plan to restore order, put 10,000 extra police officers on our streets and put fear back in the minds of criminals where it belongs.”
