Migrant sex offender arrested after being released from prison in error

According to the Metropolitan Police, a migrant who was mistakenly released from jail was arrested in north London following a manhunt. Hadush Kebatu was discovered in the Finsbury Park neighborhood at 08:30 a. M. On Sunday, two days after being told not to go back in error from HMP Chelmsford. According to the Met Police, Kebatu was arrested on suspicion of unlawfully on board and will be taken to a London jail. Kebatu, who was jailed last month for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl and a woman in Epping while living in an asylum facility, was supposed to be arrested unless jail workers mistakenly released him.

Kebatu will be arrested and an inquiry into the detention process would be launched, according to Sir Keir Starmer, who added:

We must make sure this does not happen again. One eyewitness told BBC News that he spotted Kebatu being led away by a number of officers while walking his dog in Finsbury Park when he noticed it.

I saw police officers with a man who looked like the one who had been detained," the cop continued. It's a strange occurrence to have a high-profile case of a man who was just let out and was nearby.

At a bus stop near Finsbury Park station at 08:03 on Sunday morning, a member of the public alerted police that they had spotted a man they suspected to be Kebatu at a stop off the subway at 08 05:03. Officers were sent to the area and discovered him 16 minutes later. Kebatu was seen being led away in handcuffs by officers dressed in different clothing to the prison-issue grey tracksuit in which he had been last seen on Friday evening.

Kebatu had been released in error at 12:57 on Friday, but Kebato had already boarded a train to east London 16 minutes before. Kebatu was also caught in Chelmsford city centre speaking to residents of the public just after being released, and police confirmed he approached several people seeking assistance. The Met Police also confirmed that Kebatu took a number of train journeys around the capital. On Friday evening, officers at a library in the Dalston area began to sell CCTV photos of Kebatu. He was still wearing a prison-issue grey tracksuit and carrying a white bag with avocados on it.

Kebatu's detention in July sparked demonstrations outside The Bell Hotel in Epping, where he had been staying since arriving in the United Kingdom on a small boat. Kebatu attempted to kiss a teenage girl on a bench and made several sexually explicit remarks in September, according to the Chelmsford Magistrates' Court. He encountered the same girl the next day and attempted to kiss her before sexually assaulting her. He also sexually assaulted a woman who had promised to assist him in drafting a CV to find a job. During a court appearance, Kebatu gave his age as 38, but a judge said he had seen evidence indicating he was 41. He denied the charges against him but was found guilty of five criminal charges last month and sentenced to 12 months in jail, including the time he was already in jail for the time. He spent 108 days in jail in total. Kebatu was also given a five-year sexual harassment conviction, which barred him from approaching or contacting any female, and a ten-year sentence to join the Sex Offenders Register. The court heard it was Kebatu's firm desire to be deported during his appeal. A deportation order must be made where a foreign national has been found guilty of an offence and has received a custodial sentence of at least 12 months under the UK Borders Act 2007.

Governors in England and Wales have been ordered by the HM Prison Service to perform additional checks before prisoners are released by Monday. A prison officer has been suspended pending an investigation, but a senior prisoner told BBC News that the discharge was down to a string of mistakes, presumably because employees are overworked and in short supply.

It's not just one jail department that's to blame,

they said. That would be unfair. According to a study by His Majesty's Prison and Probation Service, 262 prisoners in England and Wales were released in error between April 2024 and March 2025, up from 115 in the previous 12 months. According to Health Minister Wes Streeting, the detention was a massive relief and that Kebatu will now be deported.The justice secretary has ordered an inquiry into how on earth it was that a dangerous man who was supposed to be deported was instead released onto our streets.

While the investigation is ongoing, we will be open and transparent with the public about what went wrong and what we're going to do about it.

He had earlier said that the Prison Service was under a lot of pressure. But, even against that context, it does not explain or excuse the release of people on our streets who have no business being present. Alex Chalk, the former Conservative Justice Secretary, said an inquiry was mandated in order to learn lessons, and that the incident was symptomatic of larger prison reform issues.

The entire annual budget of the Ministry of Justice is spent by the Department of Work and Pensions in two weeks,

he told BBC Breakfast.

My regular plea is to ensure that the prison service has the funding it needs to ensure we are recruiting and retaining people with skills and experience to ensure these issues do not arise.

Kebatu must now be arrested, Marie Goldman, a Liberal Democrat MP for Chelmsford, said, and she also called for a national inquiry. The incident, according to Nigel Farage, the UK's once-trusted services, including the police and prisons, were "disintegrating before our eyes.