Lammy under pressure after two prisoners released by mistake

Justice Secretary David Lammy is under growing pressure after two prisoners were released from the same London jail by mistake.

Lammy, who is also deputy prime minister, had promised to introduce the “strongest checks ever” to prevent further errors after the accidental release of migrant sex offender Hadush Kebatu from Chelmsford prison in Essex last month.

But on Wednesday it emerged two more men – including an Algerian sex offender – had been mistakenly released from Wandsworth prison over the past week.

Conservative shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick said Lammy has “got to get a grip”, describing the situation as “a total shambles”.

A police manhunt in continuing for 24-year-old Algerian national Brahim Kaddour-Cherif, a registered sex offender who was convicted of indecent exposure in November 2024.

He is understood to have entered the UK legally on a visitor’s visa in 2019 but overstayed and was in the initial stages of a deportation process.

Kaddour-Cherif was released by mistake from HMP Wandsworth on 29 October but police were only told on Tuesday.

Sources told the BBC the prison’s governor was not at the jail on the day Kaddour-Cherif was released because he was carrying out the inquiry into how Kebatu was released by accident from HMP Chelmsford.

Meanwhile, police are also searching for 35-year-old William Smith, who was given a custodial sentence for fraud on Monday but then released later the same day after a court clerical error.

During Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, Lammy, who was standing in for Sir Keir Starmer, was repeatedly asked by the Conservatives whether any asylum-seeking offender had been accidentally let out of prison since Kebatu was released but he avoided answering directly.

As PMQs was ending the Met Police released a statement revealing a foreign prisoner – later named as Kaddour-Cherif – had been released by mistake last week, with the force informed on Tuesday.

The BBC has been told Lammy was informed about the case on Tuesday night.

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said that facts were still emerging as PMQs got underway at noon on Wednesday and Lammy had not been told key details including the man’s immigration status.

The spokesperson also pointed out Lammy had been asked questions about the release of an asylum seeker, which Kaddour-Cherif was not.

“The [deputy prime minister] waited until after PMQs and further facts had emerged before making a statement,” the spokesperson added.

But Jenrick accused Lammy of “a dereliction of duty” for refusing to answer the questions put to him during PMQs when he knew about the mistaken release of Kaddour-Cherif.

MPs will not have a chance to press Lammy over the issue until Tuesday, when the House of Commons returns after a short recess.

However, the justice secretary is expected to speak to the media during a visit to a prison later.

Junior justice minister Alex Davies-Jones – who was put up for interviews on Thursday morning rather than Lammy – said the government had called an urgent meeting of prison governors to find out “what is happening on the ground”.

She told the BBC tech experts were being brought in to help prison staff, who she said were dealing with an “archaic” paper-based records system.

Davies-Jones said she understood the public anger over accidental releases but argued the government had inherited a prison and justice system in “crisis”, which “isn’t going to be fixed overnight”.

Prisoners being released by mistake has been a problem for some time, however the numbers have been rising in recent years.

According to the latest figures, 262 prisoners in England and Wales were mistakenly released in the year leading to March 2025, up 128% from 115 the previous year.

Jenrick admitted the previous Conservative government’s record on prisons was “poor and unacceptable”.

However, he added: “It’s a total shambles what we’re seeing right now where the number of people being accidentally released from our prisons has risen off the charts in the last year, under this Labour government.”