UK prisons wrongly freed 262 inmates in one year - 4 still at large

Four prisoners remain at large after being mistakenly released (PA) Anthony Devlin

Four prisoners remain at large after authorities mistakenly released them from UK jails, intensifying pressure on Justice Secretary David Lammy. Authorities freed two in error in 2024 and two more in June this year, all still unaccounted for despite ongoing police searches.

The revelations come amid a string of high-profile prison blunders. Police arrested Brahim Kaddour-Cherif, a 24-year-old Algerian sex offender, on Friday after prison staff mistakenly released him from HMP Wandsworth on October 29. Prison officials only informed police of his release on November 4, requiring 50 specialist officers to recapture him following a public tip-off.

Prison staff accidentally freed Billy Smith, 35, from the same prison on Monday. He handed himself back in on Thursday.

Authorities mistakenly released Hadush Kebatu, an Ethiopian national, from HMP Chelmsford on October 24. Police subsequently arrested him for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl and a woman, and authorities have deported him.

Alarming increase

Official data reveals prisons mistakenly released 262 inmates in the 12 months to March 2025, a 128 percent increase from 115 the previous year. Of these, 90 were violent or sex offenders.

Political fallout

Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick accused the government of incompetence. "The chaos continues. The Government keeps putting the British people at risk and is relentlessly failing victims. Does anyone have confidence in David Lammy?" he said. Home Secretary Chris Philp claimed Lammy has "lost control of the justice system and is too cowardly to explain himself".

Lammy responded: "We inherited a prison system in crisis and I'm appalled at the rate of releases in error this is causing." He added: "I'm determined to grip this problem, but there is a mountain to climb which cannot be done overnight." The Justice Secretary has ordered new release checks, commissioned an independent investigation, and begun overhauling archaic paper-based systems still used in some prisons.

Cassia Rowland, senior researcher at the Institute for Government, told the Daily Mirror the problem runs deeper than procedural fixes. "The problem is prisons at the moment are like failing to deliver on basic requirements," she said. "If all of your systems are broken, there's no system you can put in place that will fix things." She warned: "There's not much chance that the provisional checks will fix things quickly - I think there is no quick way out."

Note: This article was created with Artificial Intelligence (AI).