The prison officers’ union has questioned why one employee was “unjustly” suspended after an asylum-seeker who sexually assaulted a teenage girl was freed by mistake.
And the chief inspector of prisons said mistakes over prisoner releases were happening “all the time” and were symptomatic of chaos in the system.
Mark Fairhurst, chairman of union the POA, said the employee, a custodial manager, was the only person under suspension when at least two more senior staff members were involved in freeing Hadush Kebatu from HMP Chelmsford.
The Ethiopian national was jailed for 12 months in September for the sexual assault, and was wrongly released on Friday instead of being sent to an immigration detention centre, a blunder that sparked widespread condemnation.
He was arrested on Sunday in Finsbury Park, London, after a two-day manhunt.
Mr Fairhurst told The Guardian: “One of our members has been unjustly suspended because he is not the only one involved in this entire process. Our thoughts are with him and we will fully support him.”
Downing Street has insisted Kebatu will be deported.
The POA said the suspended prison employee was responsible for checking documents to ensure the right prisoner was released, but the paperwork was processed by other managers.
Meanwhile, chief inspector of prisons Charlie Taylor said prisoners being released early, in error, or even late was now an “endemic problem” that needed to be fixed.
He said prison service leaders needed to be accountable to ensure staff were properly trained and that offender-management units, which release inmates, had enough officers.
According to government figures published in July, 262 prisoners were released in error in the year to March 2025 – a 128 per cent increase on the previous 12 months, during which 115 were wrongly set free.
Housing secretary Steve Reed called for the criminal justice system to be “rebuilt from the bottom up”.
“This individual had no right to be in the country in the first place, let alone committing the kind of offences that he committed,” he said.
Blaming the debacle on the previous Tory government, Mr Reed said: “We know that, because when we were elected, the prisons were full up. There wasn’t room to house people who have got custodial sentences in the courts.
“One-third of professional staff in the criminal justice system have been got rid of under the previous government. We’re having to rebuild it from the bottom up.”
The UK’s prisons overcrowding crisis is worsening. The Independent revealed this month that a growing maintenance backlog was now approaching £2bn, having doubled between 2020 and 2024.
A quarter of prisoners in England and Wales are locked in jails that are not fire-safe, while hundreds are in cells without toilets.
Kebatu, who was living at the Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex, was convicted in September of making inappropriate comments to a 14-year-old girl before he tried to kiss her – just eight days after he arrived in the country on a small boat.
He was found guilty of five offences after a three-day trial at Chelmsford and Colchester Magistrates' Courts, and his sentencing hearing was told it was his "firm wish" to be deported.
In court, he gave his date of birth as December 1986, making him 38, although Essex Police records state it as December 1983, making him 41.
Kebatu's crime sparked protests and counter-protests on the streets in Epping. His victim’s father said he hoped the sex offender would be deported immediately.
The Ministry of Justice referred enquiries to a statement justice secretary David Lammy was due to give in the Commons later on Monday.
