Prisoners continue to be released mistakenly with a further 12 inmates let out of jail in error since November, the UK justice secretary has revealed.
David Lammy told BBC Breakfast that despite the latest figures the “trend is downwards” after improvements to the system were put in place.
Lammy told the House of Commons in mid-November that there were 91 accidental releases in England and Wales between 1 April and 31 October this year.
He said on Tuesday: “Well, I said to parliament a few weeks ago, I released data at that point, and there had been 91 releases in error up to that point, there have been 12 since then, two are currently at large.”
Lammy said the two who were still at large were not violent or sexual offenders.
He told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: “I’m not going to give details of those cases, because these are operational decisions made by the police, and you’ll understand if they’re about to arrest somebody they don’t want me to blow the cover. So I can say that there’s been two.”
Asked if they were violent or sexual offenders, Lammy said: “I’m reassured that they are not in relation to those two.”
Lammy said previously that 262 prisoners were freed in error in the year to March 2025 out of 57,000 releases, a 128% rise on the previous year.
The statement came after Brahim Kaddour-Cherif, an Algerian sex offender, and Billy Smith, a fraudster, were freed in error from HMP Wandsworth. Smith handed himself in and police caught Kaddour-Cherif a week after his release.
Days before that, Hadush Kebatu, an Ethiopian national, was freed mistakenly from HMP Chelmsford despite his conviction for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl and a woman soon after arriving in the UK on a small boat.
Lammy confirmed that the error leading to Kaddour-Cherif’s release happened in September, before tougher security checks were introduced.
He faced criticism over his handling of the matter after he refused repeatedly to confirm whether any more asylum seekers had been released in error since Kebatu.
