Ex-Met detective says the migrant manhunt has been hindered by London’s cameras: 'It takes hour!'

He said: “People keep mentioning how London is the most surveyed city in the world which it is but they haven’t always got someone looking at the cameras. It takes officers literally hours to find the right footage.”

Ethiopian national Hadush Kebatu arrived in the UK on a small boat, and was jailed for 12 months over an attack in Epping, Essex, last month.

Kebatu was meant to be sent to an immigration detention centre from HMP Chelmsford ahead of a planned deportation, but he was accidentally released from prison on Friday.

Essex Police inquiries show that Kebatu boarded a London-bound train from Chelmsford and Scotland Yard has now taken over the investigation.

Mr Wettone said: "It takes officers literally hours to locate and review footage from a particular camera. You might have a rough idea of when he appeared on camera, for example, if he got off a train at Liverpool Street Station, you can work out roughly when that train arrived.

"Officers can then check the cameras at that station and try to track his movements. But once you lose sight of him on one camera, you have to start expanding your search area.

"That takes a lot of time, and officers would have been doing this throughout the night tracking his movements, possibly onto an Underground train, and then again when he got off.

"It’s a very time-consuming process. "We’re now coming up to 24 hours since he went missing, which suggests he either had somewhere to go, or he knew exactly where he was heading when he got off that train.

GB News host Dawn Neesom said: "He had only been in the country eight days when he committed these sex assaults on a 14-year-old girl who was wearing a school uniform. I keep emphasising that because people don’t always grasp the seriousness of what he did.

"He became aroused during the attack and didn’t seem to understand that what he’d done was wrong. He went missing at midday yesterday.

"Now, in theory, he’s only been in the country for eight days, he shouldn’t know anyone here.

"But do you think, given that he’s been off the radar for 24 hours, that maybe that’s not the case? Could he know someone in London someone who might be helping him?"

Mr Wettone explained: "potentially, yes and the police will be keeping an open mind about that. They’ll be looking into any contacts he might have made while staying at the hotel in Epping, Essex, during those eight days.

"They’ll also be checking if he’s made any connections while in prison during the month he was there — any visitors, any phone calls he received or made. That’s all part of the investigative and intelligence-gathering process.

"Officers will now be checking those venues and people to see if he’s had any contact with them, because people tend to gravitate towards places or individuals they know when they’re seeking refuge.

"This is an ongoing process, it’s being worked on by Essex Police, in conjunction with the Met Police and British Transport Police, because clearly, he’s been using the transport network to move around."

After boarding a London-bound train from Chelmsford, Kebatu eventually got off a service that stopped at Stratford at around 1.10pm.

Now, leading the manhunt, Met Police Commander James Conway says finding Kebatu is a “top priority.”

Prime Minister Keir Starmer has called the release “totally unacceptable” and said Kebatu “must be caught and deported for his crimes.”

GB News understands there are at least 18 cameras at Stratford Station.