Gardaí would like to thank the media and the public for their assistance following the discovery
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24 Oct 2025
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24 Oct 2025
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The number of prisoners released in error more than doubled in the year to March 2025, Government data shows.
A report by His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) said 262 prisoners were released in error from April 2024 to March 2025, up from 115 in the year to March 2024.
HMPPS said in the report that releases in error “remain infrequent” and believes the rise is linked to changes in the law, and the early release scheme which Labour introduced in September 2024.
Thousands of inmates have been freed early since then in a bid to cut jail overcrowding, by temporarily reducing the proportion of sentences which some prisoners must serve behind bars in England and Wales from 50% to 40%.
A number of the 262 were released in error when the early release scheme began, HMPPS said, because of an issue with a repealed breach of restraining order offence.
Those prisoners were rearrested and returned to custody, the report, published this summer, said.
Prisoners are considered “released in error” if they are wrongly discharged from prison or court, and it can happen when a sentence is miscalculated or the wrong person is discharged, among other reasons.
HMPPS said year on year changes in the number of prisoners released in error “should be considered in the context of the number of releases in the same time period and changes in the operational environment”.
Asylum seeker Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu, who sparked nationwide protests after sexually assaulting a woman and a 14-year-old girl, was released from custody by mistake on Friday morning.
A Prison Service spokesman said: “We are urgently working with police to return an offender to custody following a release in error at HMP Chelmsford.
“Public protection is our top priority and we have launched an investigation into this incident.”
Chelmsford’s MP Marie Goldman told the PA news agency the figures showed Kebatu’s release was not “a problem that happened by chance that could never happen elsewhere”.
Saying she was “concerned” by the figure, she added that it demonstrated the need for a rapid public inquiry into Kebatu’s release as there was “obviously something systemic which is broken”.
The Ministry of Justice was contacted for comment.
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