Migrant sex offender Hadush Kebatu will be deported "imminently" as one person has been suspended over his accidental release.
The Ethiopian national was wrongly freed from HMP Chelmsford on Friday morning instead of being sent to an immigration detention centre.
Asked when he would be removed from the country, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman said “you have us on record from this morning that we expect that to happen imminently” and suggested that would be within a few days.
He said prison release errors “are never acceptable” and “this is another symptom of the justice system crisis inherited by this Government having suffered cuts to staffing, failure to build prison places” and “chronic underinvestment”.
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Mistakes are “always more likely to happen” in a system in a prison crisis, the spokesman added.
A prison officer has been suspended while an investigation is underway.
Kebatu - who had been living at the Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex - was jailed for 12 months in September after sexually assaulting a woman and a 14-year-old girl.
He had arrived in the UK on a small boat just days before the incidents.
The migrant was found guilty of five offences following a three-day trial at Chelmsford and Colchester magistrates’ courts last month.
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Hadush Kebatu was mistakenly released from prison on Friday | PA
His sentencing hearing heard that it was his “firm wish” to be deported.
In court, he gave his date of birth through a translator as being in December 1986, making him 38 years old, although Essex Police has said its records state his date of birth is in December 1983, making him 41.
Kebatu’s crime sparked protests and counter-protests on the streets in Epping and eventually outside hotels housing asylum seekers across the country.
After being wrongly released from prison, Kebatu took a train from Chelmsford to Stratford, east London, and was later spotted in Dalston carrying a white bag with pictures of avocados on it.
Kebatu was spotted in Dalston, east London, carrying a white bag with pictures of avocados on it after his accidental release
| METROPOLITAN POLICEPolice 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.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer earlier confirmed an investigation has been ordered to establish what went wrong, adding: “We must make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
Justice Secretary David Lammy will today set out a series of measures aimed at strengthening checks before inmates are released as he faces questions about the blunder from MPs in Parliament.
Housing Secretary Steve Reed told GB News Kebatu’s accidental release was "catastrophic".
"David Lammy will be answering questions in the Commons today and he will be announcing the new checks that would be put in place to make sure this kind of thing cannot happen again," he said.
When told prison officers have raised concerns they do not have capacity for additional checks, Mr Reed said: “When the Justice Secretary stands up in the Commons and tells them they will carry out these checks to stop accidental releases, they will follow his orders.
“We will not tolerate this as a Government or as a country, seeing convicted criminals set loose by accident.
Kebatu was jailed for 12 months in September
| ESSEX POLICE“Absolutely unacceptable.”
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 115 the previous 12 months.
Mr Reed has insisted there had been no change in policy under Labour that led to the rise and blamed the situation on the previous Tory administration.
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