Police searching in London for a former asylum seeker and convicted sex offender who was released from prison in error have urged him to hand himself in.
The Ethiopian national Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu was jailed for 12 months in September for sexually assaulting a woman and a 14-year-old girl and made the subject of a five-year sexual harm prevention order.
Kebatu, who was released wearing a prison-issued grey tracksuit and holding a plastic bag containing his possessions, has made several train journeys across London since he was freed on Friday, according to the Metropolitan police.
A senior Met police officer made a direct appeal to Kebatu to contact the force, which was handed responsibility for the investigation on Saturday morning.
“We want to locate you in a safe and controlled way,” said Commander James Conway.
“You had already indicated a desire to return to Ethiopia when speaking to immigration staff. The best outcome for you is to make contact directly with us by either calling 999 or reporting yourself to a police station.”
He urged anyone “who sees him, knows where he is or has any information” to call 999 immediately, adding that police believe Kebatu “has access to funds, and critically, in both Chelmsford and London, sought assistance from members of the public, and has spoken to station staff”.
The 41-year-old was meant to be sent to an immigration detention centre to be deported but was released from HMP Chelmsford in Essex by mistake, it has emerged.
A delivery driver has described seeing Kebatu return to HMP Chelmsford in a “very confused” state “four or five times”, only to be turned away by prison staff and directed to the railway station.
The driver, named only as Sim, told Sky News that he saw Kebatu come out of the prison saying “Where am I going? What am I doing?” and hanging around for about one-and-a-half hours as he tried to find out where he should be going.
He said that Kebatu knew that he should be deported but the prison staff were “basically sending him away” and saying to him: “Go, you’ve been released, you go.”
The driver said: “He kept scratching his head and saying: ‘Where do I go, where do I go?’ The fourth or fifth time [he went into the reception] he was starting to get upset, he was getting stressed. I’m not sticking up for the guy, but in my eyes, he was trying to do the right thing.
“He knew he was getting deported, but he didn’t know where he was going or how he should get there.”
Kebatu appears to have been spotted later in Chelmsford town centre asking for assistance before getting on to a train to London.
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Essex police confirmed Kebatu was seen catching a train at Chelmsford railway station at 12.41pm on Friday. Met police confirmed he was seen getting off the train in Stratford in east London at about 1.10pm on Friday.
As a result, the Met was handed responsibility for the investigation on Saturday morning, the force said.
Conway had said earlier that finding Kebatu was a “top priority” for the Met.
He added: “The manhunt is being led by an experienced senior investigating officer. He has teams from the Specialist Crime Command with expertise in tracking down wanted people at his disposal, as well as other resources from across the Met.
“We are examining CCTV from [Stratford] and farther afield, including on the transport network, to establish information about his subsequent movements.”
A statement from Essex police on Saturday morning said that officers had “worked through the night” to track Kebatu’s movements, including “scouring hours of CCTV footage”.
Prison Service sources said the release from HMP Chelmsford was caused by human error. It is understood the prison officer who authorised the release has been removed from duties while an urgent investigation takes place.
According to the Telegraph, Kebatu was wrongly categorised as a prisoner due to be released on licence and handed a £76 discharge grant.
One prison source described the incident as a “disaster waiting to happen” because of the high volume of releases being processed by inexperienced staff, and dozens of prisoners serving different tariffs being released at the same time.
Aaron Stow, the president of the Criminal Justice Workers’ Union (CJWU), called Kebatu’s mistaken release “a profound failure of duty”.
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He said: “The release of Hadush Kebatu is a betrayal of the victims, the community, and the principles of justice. We demand a full investigation and immediate reforms to ensure this never happens again.”
Mike Rolfe, the CJWU’s general secretary, added: “The justice system is stretched to breaking point, the public’s confidence is collapsing, and those tasked with enforcing the law are left to pick up the pieces of political cowardice.”
The father of Kebatu’s teenage victim told Sky News: “The justice system has let us down.”
A report by HM Inspectorate of Prisons after an inspection in January and February 2024 said HMP Chelmsford faced “considerable pressures” because of “national capacity issues”, while suffering staff shortfalls in reception and the pre-release team.
A spokesperson for the Prison Service said it had launched an investigation into the incident and was “urgently working” with police to return Kebatu to custody, adding in a statement: “Public protection is our top priority.”
Chris Whitbread, the Conservative leader of Epping Forest district council, said he was “shocked and appalled” at the “grave error” of Kebatu’s release.
He said: “There must also be a full and transparent investigation into how this happened and what safeguards will be put in place to ensure it never happens again.”
The Conservative MP for Epping Forest, Neil Hudson, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “This sounds like an operational error, but the buck has to stop somewhere, and it has to stop at the top, at the justice secretary, the home secretary and the prime minister.
“They have said that they are livid and appalled. Well, quite right, they should be livid and appalled. But that’s not good enough, and the Labour government needs to get a grip of this issue.”
The Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage, said: “Britain is broken.”
The deputy prime minister, David Lammy, said on Friday he was “livid on behalf of the public” and had launched an investigation into the incident.
He added that Labour had inherited “a collapsing prison system”, but said there was “no excuse” for the mistaken release.
The prime minister, Keir Starmer, said the release was “totally unacceptable” and that he was “appalled”.
Annual government data for prisons shows that 262 prisoners were released in error in the year to March 2025, an increase of 128% on the previous year.
Kebatu was found guilty of five offences last month after attempting to kiss a 14-year-old girl twice, before sexually assaulting her, and sexually assaulting a woman and trying to kiss her too.
He committed the offences just days after arriving in the UK on a small boat and taking up residence at the Bell hotel in Epping. His case triggered protests outside the hotel, which far-right activists sought to exploit, leading to assaults on police officers and 32 arrests.
At his trial, the district judge Christopher Williams said Kebatu posed a “significant risk of reoffending”, was “manipulative”, and had acted “ignorantly and repulsively” towards the woman he had assaulted. He was sentenced to 12 months in prison and had served just 31 days when he was released.
