Teenage victim of Epping sex attacker 'feared' seeing him again after accidental release

Police found and arrested him inside Finsbury Park at around 8.30am on Sunday after a member of the public spotted him at a nearby bus stop.

Now, the father of the victim condemned the error as "unbelievably irresponsible."

A statement from the victim's father was read out by Shane Yerrell, an independent councillor on Epping Forest District Council.

The statement read: "The trauma and torment my daughter has suffered since this assault has really hurt myself and my family. She was slowly starting to get some of her confidence back and has recently started seeing her closest friends and been back in school.

"Friday’s news has caused her so much stress and anxiety. She feared seeing him again in the high road and him recognising her. I’m really worried for my daughter’s mental health and wellbeing because of this assault.

"This man is a real danger to young women and children and for him to be wrongly released and walking the streets freely just four months after carrying out two sexual assaults, only five weeks after being sentenced, all because of a system failure on Friday is unbelievably irresponsible."

In the statement, the father said he was first alerted to the Kebatu's mistaken release by a reporter and said he was "greeted with hostility" when he went to HMP Chelmsford for answers.

He continued: "I had to find out from a reporter that my daughter’s attacker was accidentally released in the day, then be sent images and videos of him walking around throughout the day before the police even alerted her mother.

"Then later that day when I attended HMP Chelmsford to seek some answers I was greeted with hostility and complete disregard for anything I said or asked, totally disrespecting me and my family."

"I really hope that nobody else’s child has to experience what my daughter has. I really feared that this could happen again while Hadush Kebatu was freely walking around the streets of Chelmsford and London over the weekend. I hope he will be deported immediately."

A eyewitness who saw Kebatu being led out of Finsbury Park by female officers said the mistakenly-released prisoner was walking "calmly" and "wasn’t trying to get away."

Jack Neill-Hall told reporters: "I was there to walk my dog and as I entered the park I saw a group of five people, two uniformed officers, someone who looked more like they were a plain-clothes officer, and a fourth person who I don’t know what their role was, and a man who looked awfully like the Epping asylum seeker guy who’d been on all the newspapers over the weekend.

"I knew that he’d last been seen in the Hackney area and I thought ‘oh, that looks awfully like that guy, he’s not wearing the same clothes but it looks like him’.

"I didn’t see him being arrested but I saw they were walking with the two female officers with their hands on him, two further officers who were talking into a radio walking down...towards the exit."

Chelmsford’s Liberal Democrat MP Marie Goldman called for a "rapid" national inquiry into the blunder that saw Kebatu walk free.

She said: "It’s 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’t at the moment. A rapid, national inquiry must happen to get to the bottom of this."

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp told GB News he remains "shocked that this inept Labour Government let him out in the first place."

Head of policy for Reform UK Zia Yusuf said he was "relieved" Kebatu was apprehended, telling Sky News: "This is a man who eyewitnesses said was actively trying to go back into prison after being accidentally let go.

"So, look, glad he’s been apprehended but I mean it’s absolutely shocking and how any victim of sexual assault could look at this Labour Government and Jess Phillips in particular, and the whole state apparatus right now, and have any degree of confidence is beyond me.”

A prison officer has been taken off duties to discharge prisoners while an investigation takes place.