At a glance
• Up to 40 more prisoners could be wrongly released before Christmas, with errors now averaging 22 a month and 262 inmates released by mistake in the year to March
• Two inmates, convicted sex offender Brahim Kaddour-Cherif and fraudster Billy Smith, are currently on the run after being mistakenly freed from HMP Wandsworth
• The government has launched an urgent review, summoned prison governors, and brought in tech experts to address chaotic release processes
David Lammy has admitted that the Government has a "mountain to climb" in tackling the prisons crisis as it emerged that 40 more inmates may be wrongly freed before Christmas.
The Justice Secretary also sought to defend why he had not been more open about the latest blunder over the release of an Algerian sex offender, saying he was "not equipped with all the facts" when he stood in for Sir Keir Starmer at Prime Minister’s Questions.
The Conservatives have accused him of a “total dereliction of duty’ and branded his handling of the latest mistake a “disgrace”.
Earlier it had emerged that 40 more prisoners more could be wrongly released from jail before Christmas unless the system improves.
Speaking this morning as the hunt for two on the run continued, Victims minister Alex Davies-Jones said the problem of inmates, including foreign offenders, being let free by mistake was not going to be “fixed overnight”.
“Any prisoners released in error is totally unacceptable,” she told BBC Breakfast.
“When the Tories left office it was around 17 a month.
READ MORE: Tipping Point: Inside Britain's broken justice system
“We are now facing around 22 a month being released in error.”
The minister sought to blame the “crisis” in Britain’s jails on the past Conservative governments.
She stressed there was “utter chaos” in the prison system.
“Sadly this is not going to be fixed overnight,” she added.
There were 262 prisoners wrongly released in the year to March 2025, a 128 per cent increase compared to the year before when it 115.
Amid the crisis, jail governors have been summoned to an emergency meeting, tech experts are being brought in to try to reduce the number of errors and to stop prison officers have to rely on “reams and reams of paper” and an urgent review of the release system was being carried out.
A manhunt continues for two prisoners released by mistake, including a migrant sex offender, as Mr Lammy faced pressure over the errors and why a junior minister rather than he was doing the morning media round for the Government.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, the Justice Secretary said: "I took the judgment that it is important when updating the House and the country about serious matters like this that you have all of the detail.
"I was not equipped with all of the detail and the danger is that you end up misleading the house and the general public. So, that is the judgment I took, and I think it's the right judgment."
The Tories, though, accused him of a “total dereliction of duty’ in his response to the latest release storm having pledged tougher checks after the wrongful freeing of Ethiopian Hadush Kebatu who committed sexual offences against a 14-year-old girl and a woman in Epping, Essex, in July. He was an asylum seeker living at The Bell Hotel.
Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick told BBC radio: “The second convicted sex offender, illegal migrant in two weeks has been released accidentally from one of our prisons, despite the fact that the Justice Secretary after the first incident came to Parliament and said that he was putting in place the most robust checks to ensure this never happened again.”
“It took six days for the prison service supposedly to even become aware that this had happened and inform the Metropolitan Police, who are now a week behind in the manhunt to find him.”
Police are trying to track down Algerian national Brahim Kaddour-Cherif, 24, a sex offender mistakenly released from HMP Wandsworth last Wednesday October 29.
They were also searching for another inmate, Billy Smith, 35, accidentally released from the same south-west London prison on Monday, but who handed himself in there on Thursday.
Kaddour-Cherif was serving a sentence at Wandsworth for trespass with intent to steal, but had previously also been convicted for indecent exposure, as well as for a knife offence.
He was freed from the prison, which was put into special measures last year, on October 29, but the mistake was only reported to the Metropolitan Police on Tuesday, the force said, with some claims the jail only became aware he had gone after six days.
The Algerian national is understood to not be an asylum seeker, but is in the process of being deported after he overstayed his visa.
Smith, who has links to the Woking area, was freed on Monday, and had been sentenced to 45 months for multiple fraud offences on the same day he was accidentally freed.
The BBC reported that a clerical error by a court had led to his release, as he was listed as receiving a suspended sentence, rather than one in custody.
The Justice Secretary is under fire after reports emerged which suggested he was aware of Kaddour-Cherif’s release and had prepared to address it when he filled in for Sir Keir at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday.
Mr Lammy, who is also Deputy Prime Minister, repeatedly failed to tell MPs whether any more asylum seekers had been mistakenly released from jail since the case of Epping hotel migrant Hadush Kebatu.
The story broke as PMQs were ending, and a comment released on Mr Lammy’s behalf said he was “absolutely outraged” over Kaddour-Cherif’s release.
Mr Lammy is believed to have been briefed about the case on Tuesday night, and The Times newspaper reported he had a statement ready to read out if the news broke, but did not do so for fear of pre-empting the Metropolitan Police.
The newspaper also said Mr Lammy rejected calls from Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle to return to the Commons and give a statement on the error as aides believed it would be “career suicide”.
His Tory opponent at PMQs James Cartlidge had asked him whether any other asylum seeking offenders had been wrongly release.
The Justice Secretary was not aware of the full details of Kaddour-Cherif’s case, according to his department, and he was not an asylum seeker.
Junior justice minister Ms Davies-Jones said Mr Lammy was visiting a prison on Thursday morning and would take questions from the media.
Mark Fairhurst, national chairman of the Prison Officers’ Association, told Times Radio that austerity had an impact on the prisons system.
“Prisons are not vote winners... after 14 years of austerity and cuts, well, let’s be honest, cuts have consequences. And this is the fruition of those cuts,” he said.
