A wrongly freed convicted fraudster handed himself back into prison on Thursday after being free for three days after a bungled release at HMP Wandsworth last Friday.
Police are continuing to search for a migrant sex offender who was also set free at the southwest London jail.
The scandal comes less than two weeks after Epping sex offender Hadush Kebatu was accidentally released from prison in October, when he was to be transferred to an immigration detention centre.
How and when were two prisoners released from Wandsworth Prison?
Brahim Kaddour-Cherif was released from the prison on 29 October and has now been free for more than a week, with the Met Police only being notified of the incident on Tuesday, six days later.
William ‘Billy’ Smith, who turned himself in, was also wrongly freed on Monday. According to BBC, Smith was released due to a clerical error, and his custodial sentence was said to have been filed on a computer as a suspended sentence.
When the error was flagged and amended by the court, the correction was sent to the wrong person.
Justice minister Alex Davies-Jones has suggested an “archaic” paper-based system is to partly blame, stating that tech experts had been deployed to help staff, “because they are working with reams and reams of paper in the 21st century, which is totally unacceptable.”
Why were the prisoners sent to jail?
Kaddour-Cherif, a 24-year-old Algerian national, was serving a sentence for trespass with intent to steal. He is a registered sex offender and has previously been convicted for indecent exposure. He was in the process of being deported after overstaying his visa.
Smith, who is 35-years-old, returned to prison after being sentenced to 45 months for multiple fraud offences on the same day he was accidentally released.
When was Billy Smith returned?
Smith returned to prison on Thursday, three days after being wrongly freed. According to ITV, which filmed the moment he handed himself in, Smith was accompanied by his partner, whom he hugged before speaking to prison staff at the prison's entrance. In the video, he was seen smiling for the cameras and smoking a cigarette outside jail.
Surrey Police said: “We are cancelling our appeal to help find wanted 35-year-old William Smith, who was released in error from HMP Wandsworth on Monday, November 3.
“Smith handed himself in to HMP Wandsworth today.”
How often are prisoners accidentally released?
A total of 262 people were released from prisons in England and Wales in the year to March 2025, according to official figures.
The Prison Governors Association has said releases in error are "neither rare nor hidden", but said the scale of them was "deeply concerning".
Less than two weeks ago, the accidental release of an asylum seeker led to a three-day manhunt in London. Epping migrant Hadush Kebatu, who sexually assaulted a woman and a 14-year-old girl, was supposed to have been sent to an immigration detention centre to be deported, but was mistakenly freed.
After his release, justice secretary Lammy said he "put in the toughest checks we have ever had in the prison system".
Who is responsible for the accidental release of prisoners?
The blunder has come as a great embarrassment for Mr Lammy and the government, who have been called on to answer questions surrounding the circumstances of the incident.
Following the release of Kebatu, which was deemed to be “human error”, one prison worker was suspended from HMP Chelmsford and an independent investigation was launched.
While Sir Keir Starmer said the circumstances will be “forensically” examined, it is still unclear what actions have been taken and will be taken.
Prison chiefs have been called in for crisis talks, and a team of digital experts have been tasked with overhauling the “archaic” paper-based system of prisoner records.
What have politicians and prison governors reacted?
Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, said Lammy’s response to questions regarding whether any more asylum seekers had been accidentally released from jail at Prime Minister's Questions was a “disgrace”.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Robert Jenrick said: “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.”
Former prison governor John Podmore has also condemned Mr Lammy, who he said needed to “get a grip”.
Mr Podmore told LBC that although the justice minister may have “inherited a broken system”, the government has since “done nothing other than continue to promote from within the people responsible for that broken system”.
The justice minister said she was “furious” about the situation, and told Times Radio the government was taking action.
Ms Davies-Jones said: “It’s not going to be fixed overnight, sadly, I don’t have a magic wand, but we are putting plans in place to actually fix the issues.”
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