High-profile wrongful UK prisoner releases expose worsening crisis

By Muvija M

LONDON (Reuters) -Britain's justice minister said on Thursday that a spike in prisoners being wrongly released from jail was unacceptable, as he and the government faced mounting pressure to address a crisis exposed by the release of a migrant sex offender.

Last month's accidental release of Ethiopian asylum seeker Hadush Kebatu, whose crimes had sparked weeks of protests outside a hotel housing asylum seekers, heaped criticism on the government which critics say is failing to deal with overcrowded prisons and a broken immigration system.

The embarrassment was compounded this week when it was revealed two more prisoners had been mistakenly released - including an Algerian national on the sex offenders register who had overstayed his visa.

CRISIS PUTS DEPUTY PM IN SPOTLIGHT

One of the men has since handed himself in, but a manhunt is still underway to recapture the Algerian national, Brahim Kaddour-Cherif.

Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Secretary David Lammy told parliament on Wednesday that he had toughened the rules to fix the problem.

Official figures show 262 prisoners were mistakenly released in the 12 months to March 2025 - the fourth consecutive year of increases and more than double the 115 reported the previous year.

"The spike in mistaken releases is unacceptable," Lammy said on X. "We're modernising prison systems - replacing paper with digital tools to cut errors."

Opponents said Lammy had failed to get a grip.

"It's a total shambles. You've had, for the second, in fact the third time now in two weeks, criminals being released accidentally from our prisons," said Robert Jenrick, justice spokesperson for the main opposition Conservative Party.

The prison system has come under increasing strain after the number of inmates in England and Wales doubled in the last 30 years, forcing the government to expand an early release scheme to prevent an overcrowding crisis.

Alex Davies-Jones, a junior justice minister, blamed the situation on 14 years of "chronic austerity and underfunding in our public services", as well as the failure to build more prisons, under the previous Conservative government.

Separately, a group representing prison governors highlighted the "worsening" state of the country's prison estate, saying the conditions made "errors not just possible, but predictable".

(Reporting by Muvija M; Additional reporting by Sam Tabahriti; Editing by Sharon Singleton and Andrew Heavens)