Manhunt continues for wrongly released prisoner as pressure mounts on Lammy

Prison governors were “hauled over the coals” by David Lammy as the manhunt continues for Algerian sex offender Brahim Kaddour-Cherif following his accidental release from custody.

Cabinet minister Steve Reed defended the Justice Secretary’s response to the fiasco as Mr Lammy faced condemnation from within government.

Kaddour-Cherif, 24, was accidentally freed from HMP Wandsworth in London on October 29.

He was serving a sentence for trespass with intent to steal, but had previously been convicted for indecent exposure.

It is understood he is not an asylum seeker, but is in the process of being deported after he overstayed his visa.

Another prisoner, Billy Smith, 35 – who was also accidentally freed from the same prison on Monday, handed himself back in.

Mr Reed said the Government was dealing with a crisis in the criminal justice system it had inherited from the Tories.

He told Times Radio: “The problem is we’ve got a broken system, and you are going to see failings when you have a broken system.

“The key is to make sure we have a digital system so that no prisoner is ever released by mistake.

“There is not an acceptable number for this, but the way to fix it is not tittle tattle about David Lammy in the newspapers, it’s to get on and do the work and put in the investment that will digitise the system.

“David has already had the prison governors in his office yesterday, I imagine they felt pretty hauled over the coals given what’s been going on, but he was also making sure that they’re getting all the support they need to carry out the much tougher checks that will be required to make sure that the repeats of this are at an absolute minimum.”

Sir Keir Starmer has also backed Mr Lammy, his Deputy Prime Minister.

But one Cabinet minister told The Times that Mr Lammy’s behaviour – which saw him fail to answer questions about mistaken releases while deputising for the Prime Minister in the Commons – had been “cowardly”, and “he should have fronted up and owned it”.

A senior government source said: “It feels less like a contempt (of Parliament) issue, more just rank incompetence and frankly pretty dodgy.”

The Telegraph reported that 90 violent or sex offenders had been released in error from prison over the last year.

Mr Lammy said on Thursday that engineers, analysts and designers will be sent into prisons to roll out technology aimed at reducing human error and modernising the “paper-based” processes that have led to mistaken releases.

He announced the new measures after meeting with 11 prison governors at the groundbreaking of a new prison in Gartree, Leicestershire.

Mr Lammy told reporters during the visit that he was “not equipped with all the detail” about Kaddour-Cherif’s release when he appeared at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday.

The Justice Secretary repeatedly refused to confirm at Prime Minister’s Questions, when he was standing in for Sir Keir, whether any more asylum seekers had been wrongly released since Hadush Kebatu, the now-deported migrant at the heart of protests in Epping, Essex.

Mr Lammy said he found out about the mistake on Wednesday morning, but the detail was released just after he had finished PMQs.

Stronger security checks were announced for prisons and an independent investigation was launched into releases in error following the blunder in Kebatu’s case.

The Epping migrant, jailed for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl and a woman, was accidentally freed from prison instead of being sent to an immigration detention centre last month. He was later traced and deported.

The error brought to light concerns over the rising number of prisoners released in error, as the latest Government figures show 262 prisoners were released in error in the year to March 2025 – a 128% increase on 115 in the previous 12 months.

The Prison Governors Association (PGA) described releases in error as “neither rare nor hidden”, but said on Thursday the scale was “deeply concerning”.

Mr Lammy said Kaddour-Cherif was freed before the tougher checks started, while Smith’s case was a court error.

The Cabinet minister told reporters: “We have found out that the release that has caused concern, this week, was actually before I introduced those checks just a few weeks ago following the release of Kebatu, and the other prisoner was a court mistake not, in fact, a prison mistake.”

Mr Lammy had confirmed on October 27 that stronger release checks would come into force immediately, two days before Kaddour-Cherif was released.

The Tories accused him of potentially misleading the public.

Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick said: “How can the public have confidence in the Justice Secretary when he can’t establish a timeline of events or answer basic questions?”