A foreign prisoner has accidentally been released from jail for a second time in the past few weeks.
An Algerian man, 24, was freed last Wednesday from HMP Wandsworth, in south London, just days after migrant sex offender Hadush Kebatu was released from HMP Chelmsford in Essex.
It happened after Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy introduced extra checks for UK prisons in response to the accidental release of Kebatu.
Lammy was asked five times to confirm that ‘no other asylum seeking offender’ had been mistakenly released from prison this afternoon, while standing in for Sir Keir Starmer at Prime Minister’s Questions.
Each time, he refused to answer the question directly, instead criticising the state of the justice system inherited from the Conservatives and pointing to a review into mistaken releases he had ordered.
Sign up for all of the latest stories
Start your day informed with Metro’s News Updates newsletter or get Breaking News alerts the moment it happens.
It is currently unconfirmed if the prisoner in the latest incident was seeking asylum, as shadow defense secretary James Cartlidge said in his questions to Lammy.
In a statement, London’s Metropolitan Police said: ‘Shortly after 1pm on Tuesday 4 November, the Met was informed by the Prison Service that a prisoner had been released in error from HMP Wandsworth on Wednesday 29 October.
‘The prisoner is a 24-year-old Algerian man. Officers are carrying out urgent enquiries in an effort to locate him and return him to custody.’
According to Sky News, the prisoner, who has not been named, was serving time for trespass with an intent to steal but has previously committed sexual offenses.
When Metro asked the police to confirm this, they declined to comment. The Ministry of Justice has been approached for comment.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said: ‘We asked the Deputy Prime Minister five times to tell us if another migrant sex offender had been accidentally released from prison.
‘Instead of answering, Lammy lost his temper.
‘Now we read it has happened again and he’s been on the run for a week. This is a shambles of a government.’
A spokesman for the government said: ‘One mistaken release is too many, as we saw in the Kebatu case.
‘That is why we ordered the review led by Dame Lynne Owens, and I think it’s fair to assume that this case will perform part of that review.’
The accidental release of Hadush Kebatu caused considerable embarrassment for the government last week.
Kebatu, a former asylum seeker from Ethiopia, became one of the most notorious sex offenders in the country when his case sparked protests outside the Bell Hotel in Epping.
Those demonstrations spread across the country this summer, with several descending into violence.
The offender was due to be deported when he was mistakenly freed on October 24. He was finally sent back to Ethiopia on October 28 after being tracked down by police in north London’s Finsbury Park.
HMP Wandsworth has had a number of issues in recent years. In September 2023, Daniel Khalife escaped from the category B prison by clinging to the underside of a food delivery truck.
He was then on the run for several days, before eventually being found on a canal towpath in west London by a plain clothed detective.
Khalife was being held at the prison on suspicion of spying for Iran. He was jailed at Woolwich Crown Court earlier this year for 14 years.
A review of progress by the prison inspectorate at HMP Wandsworth in May said the situation had improved since a dire inspection report the previous August.
However, Chief Inspector Charlie Taylor said those improvements were ‘limited and fragile’, while ‘outcomes across many areas were still concerning’.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@usnewsrank.com.
For more stories like this, check our news page.