Twelve more prisoners released in error, with two still missing, says Lammy

In the last three weeks, Justice Secretary David Lammy said 12 prisoners were mistakenly released, two of whom are now detained. It comes on top of the 91 prisoners who were released by mistake between April and October in England and Wales. When jails were using a paper-based system, Lammy predicted that it would always be a human mistake when they were using an electronic system, and that the situation would improve after a completely digital system was implemented, according to the BBC. He said there had been a spike in accidental launches, but that the company was now on a "down trend.

Lammy said he had been advised that the two prisoners on the loose were not violent or sex offenders, according to ITV later.

I'm not going to go into the details of those cases because the police are operational decisions, and you'll know if they're going to jail someone they don't want to blow the news,

he said. Hadush Kebatu, who was arrested for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl and a woman while staying in an asylum hotel in Epping, was mistakenly released the subject of accidental releases. Two days after being arrested, Kebatu was re-arrested and has now been deported to Ethiopia. Following Kebatu's release, news of two other prisoners who had been released in error - William Smith, who later surrendered himself in, and Brahim Kaddour-Cherif, who was rearrested - was discovered The cases culminated in the government implementing new security protocols, including a clear checklist for prison governors to follow when releasing prisoners. The most recent news came on November 11th, when Lammy gave a speech to the House of Commons on November 11, outlining the government's efforts to address the problem. Last year, the number of prisoners released in error increased by 128%, from 115 in 2023-2024 to 262 in the following year. In 2024-25, there were just over 57,000 prisoners who had completed the custodial portion of their sentences in England and Wales, up by around 13% year on year. The statistics on mistaken releases include cases where people were released either too early or too late.

I want to bring it down but we have a mountain to scale,

Lammy confessed to an increase in figures.

The issue had been partially exacerbated by the fact that the department had lost 6,000 officers under the previous Conservative government,

he said. Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice minister, has attributed the rise to

the chaos created by Labour's botched early release scheme,

a scheme introduced by the government to ease overcrowding in prisons.

The public are continually put in risk as a result of his shambolic leadership,

he said in reaction to the 12 new prisoner releases. When will this fiasco end?

It's completely intolerable that public safety has been put at risk once more,

Liberal Democrat spokeswoman Jess Brown-Fuller said,

both the government and the prison service must admit to their mistakes and promise that these mistakes will cease occurring once and for all.

Last month, Lammy lAId out the steps taken by the government to solve the problem, which included investing up to £10 million for new AI tools to minimize human error and upgrading the prison's paper-based system. In addition, the government has requested former Met Police Commissioner Lynne Owens to conduct an investigation into the conduct that resulted in Kebatu's release and the subsequent corrections throughout the prison system. In February 2026, she is set to return from her assignment. According to Charlie Taylor, chief inspector of prisons, the increasing number of mistaken releases indicated that something is going to go wrong with the prison system. He said mistakes partly resulted because inexperienced employees were being expected to deal with huge caseloads while speaking to the BBC in October. Prisoners were expected to change policies, including several early release plans introduced both by the previous Conservative government and the new Labour government, according to him. Taylor also stated that many prisons in West African countries are reliant on officers from West African nations, and that new Home Office visa laws could force officers to leave the country.