Independent inquiry will ‘help prevent further releases in error’ – Lammy

An independent inquiry into how a migrant sex offender was mistakenly released from prison will look at how to prevent further “rising” releases in error, the Justice Secretary said.

Ethiopian national Hadush Kebatu was wrongly freed from HMP Chelmsford on Friday morning instead of being sent to an immigration detention centre.

He was set for deportation under an early removals scheme (ERS) for foreign national offenders, but was released into the community in “what appears to have been in human error”, David Lammy told MPs.

The migrant, who had been living at the Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex when he sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl and a woman, later travelled to London and was arrested on Sunday morning in Finsbury Park after a two-day manhunt.

In the Commons on Monday, Mr Lammy confirmed stronger release checks will come into force immediately while shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick branded the incident a “national embarrassment”.

Mr Lammy said: “I’ve been clear from the outset that a mistake of this nature is unacceptable.

“We must get to the bottom of what happened and take immediate action to try and prevent similar releases in error to protect the public from harm.”

Former Metropolitan Police deputy commissioner Dame Lynne Owens will chair the probe and will speak to the victims in the case about how the incident impacted on them, Mr Lammy said.

He added: “Her report will highlight points of failure and make recommendations to help prevent further releases in error, which have been rising year on year since 2021 – going from nine per month on average in 2023, to 17 per month in the period spanning January to June 2024.

“And I’m clear that a single release in error is one too many, which is why we have launched this independent investigation.”

A prison officer has been suspended while the probe takes place.

The deputy prime minister also said he ordered an “urgent review” into the checks that take place when someone is released from prison, and that new safeguards have been added that amount to the “strongest release checks that have ever been in place”.

As well as further accountability for senior staff to check processes, Mr Lammy also said that no removals from HMP Chelmsford under the ERS will take place this week.

Foreign criminals facing deportation will also be able to be released from prison only when a duty governor is physically present under the changes, Mr Lammy said.

In a statement, the Prison Governors’ Association said the additional checks are “undoubtedly” the result of the need to do something following such an apparent failure, but whether they will address the issues “we will not know until the issues have been identified”.

The representative group added: “A checklist won’t cut it – but neither will pantomime politics change our prisons for good.”

Elsewhere in the Commons, Chelmsford MP Marie Goldman said that “scapegoating a single prison officer for systemic failure is unacceptable”, adding that any prison governors found to be at fault over the incident should resign.

Earlier on Monday, Mark Fairhurst, the national chairman of the prison officers’ union, told The Guardian that a single member of staff had been “unjustly suspended” while there had been other more senior staff members involved.

Reacting to Mr Lammy’s statement, he added that a severe lack of training for staff has been highlighted to the prison service “for at least a decade” and that the pressure on staff is “intolerable” and could lead to mistakes.

“These issues should have been addressed a long time ago, but as usual, our employer waits for a headline and then acts,” he said.

It comes as the chief inspector of prisons told the PA news agency that mistakes over prisoner releases are happening “all the time” and are symptomatic of the chaos within the system.

Charlie Taylor said prisoners being released early, in error or even late is an “endemic problem” now that needs to be fixed by prison service leaders.

According to Government figures published in July, 262 prisoners were released in error in the year to March 2025 – a 128% increase on 115 in the previous 12 months.

It is understood Kebatu, who crossed the Channel in a small boat to enter the UK on June 29, left prison with an amount of personal money but was not given a discharge grant to cover subsistence costs.

He was convicted of making inappropriate comments to a 14-year-old girl before he tried to kiss her on July 7 – just eight days after he arrived in the country on a small boat.

His trial also heard that a day later he sexually assaulted a woman by trying to kiss her, putting his hand on her leg and telling her she was pretty.

Kebatu was found guilty of five offences after a three-day trial at Chelmsford and Colchester Magistrates’ Courts in September, and his sentencing hearing heard it was his “firm wish” to be deported.

Kebatu’s crime sparked protests and counter-protests on the streets in Epping, and eventually outside hotels housing asylum seekers across the country.

Speaking in the Commons, Mr Jenrick claimed “the only illegal migrants this Government are stopping are those that actually want to leave the UK”.

Responding to the Justice Secretary, Mr Jenrick said: “Dear oh dear. Where to begin? This Justice Secretary could not deport the only small boat migrant who wanted – no – who tried to be deported.

“Calamity Lammy strikes again. It’s a national embarrassment and today the Justice Secretary feigns anger at what happened.”

Conservative former minister Caroline Johnson pressed Mr Lammy on how many prisoners released in error “are still at large”, to which he did not directly respond.

He said: “There are a number of people released under different regimes. Some of them will be released at home and will be leading hopefully productive lives. Others will be back in prison. Some are recalled under licence.

“All of this will be examined by the independent, full investigation.”