\n<\/p>\n
Prisons are expected to begin enhanced checks before inmates are released after a man who sexually assaulted a young girl was mistakenly freed from jail.<\/p>\n
The justice secretary, David Lammy, will set out a series of measures aimed at strengthening the system in England and Wales as he faces questions from MPs in parliament about the error.<\/p>\n
The former asylum seeker Hadush Kebatu was wrongly freed from HMP Chelmsford on Friday morning, instead of being sent to an immigration detention centre.<\/p>\n
The Ethiopian national, who had been living at the Bell hotel in Epping, in Essex, when he sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl, later travelled to London. He was arrested on Sunday morning in Finsbury Park after a two-day manhunt.<\/p>\n
The father of Kebatu\u2019s teenage victim said he hoped the sex offender, whose application for asylum was rejected, would be \u201cdeported immediately\u201d. Lammy said that should happen after he was questioned by police later this week.<\/p>\n
The communities secretary, Steve Reed, told broadcasters on Monday he shared their \u201cfrustration and fury\u201d as he conceded the justice system was \u201cbroken\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said his cabinet colleague Lammy would be announcing \u201ca strengthened series of checks to make sure this kind of thing doesn\u2019t happen again\u201d.<\/p>\n
According to government figures published in July, 262 prisoners were released in error in the year to March 2025 \u2013 a 128% increase on 115 in the previous 12 months.<\/p>\n
Reed said there had been no change in policy under Labour that led to the rise and blamed the situation on staffing cuts made by the previous Tory administration. \u201cIf the previous government cut the number of staff by a third, if they fail to build prison places, I\u2019m afraid then disasters will happen,\u201d he told Times Radio.<\/p>\n
However, Charlie Taylor, the chief inspector of prisons, said he had yet to see detail of extra checks that prison governors had been ordered to undertake.<\/p>\n
He told BBC Radio 4\u2019s Today programme: \u201cI haven\u2019t actually seen the checklist itself. I can absolutely understand that ministers are furious about this case and want to make sure that it doesn\u2019t happen again. Is it proportionate? Well, we\u2019ll have to look at the checklist over the course of this week.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lammy said he would announce an independent inquiry into what happened on Monday following widespread condemnation of the error among opposition critics.<\/p>\n
Following Kebatu\u2019s arrest, Chelmsford\u2019s Liberal Democrat MP, Marie Goldman, called for a \u201crapid\u201d national investigation, saying: \u201cIt\u2019s unacceptable that the safety of my constituents, and the people of London, was ever put at risk. The Prison Service had several chances to fix it and failed. The government has serious questions to answer and major work to do to make the system fit for purpose. It certainly isn\u2019t at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
The shadow home secretary, Chris Philp, said Lammy and the home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, had questions to answer over the case, and should apologise \u201cfor their failures\u201d. The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, said that \u201cunder Labour, victims are failed, criminals walk free and trust in policing has collapsed\u201d.<\/p>\n
Keir Starmer confirmed an investigation had been ordered to establish what went wrong, adding: \u201cWe must make sure this doesn\u2019t happen again.\u201d<\/p>\n
A prison officer has been suspended while an investigation takes place.<\/p>\n
It is understood Kebatu, who crossed the Channel in a small boat to enter the UK on 29 June, left prison with an amount of personal money but was not given a discharge grant to cover subsistence costs.<\/p>\n
He was convicted of making inappropriate comments to a 14-year-old girl before he tried to kiss her on 7 July. His trial also heard that a day later, he sexually assaulted a woman by trying to kiss her, putting his hand on her leg and telling her she was pretty.<\/p>\n
Kebatu was found guilty of five offences after a three-day trial at Chelmsford and Colchester magistrates courts in September, and his sentencing hearing was told it was his \u201cfirm wish\u201d to be deported.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Prisons are expected to begin enhanced checks before inmates are released after a man who sexually assaulted a young girl was mistakenly freed from jail. The justice secretary, David Lammy, will set out a series of measures aimed at strengthening the system in England and Wales as he faces questions from MPs in parliament about<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30841,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[5728,311,7189,7282,7000,2798,2413,2414,958,123],"class_list":{"0":"post-30840","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-social-issues","8":"tag-checks","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-enhanced","11":"tag-error","12":"tag-inmate","13":"tag-prison","14":"tag-prisons","15":"tag-probation","16":"tag-released","17":"tag-wales"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}