Manhunt ends in Brahim Kaddour-Cherif’s arrest after accidental prison release

Justice Secretary David Lammy admitted there was a “mountain to climb” to tackle the crisis in the prison system following the arrest of wrongly-released Brahim Kaddour-Cherif.

Algerian national Kaddour-Cherif, 24, was arrested more than a week after the blunder which saw him released from HMP Wandsworth in London.

The Metropolitan Police said he was detained after he was spotted by a member of the public in Blackstock Road, Finsbury Park, north London, just before 11.30am on Friday.

“Officers responded immediately and he was arrested,” the force said.

Kaddour-Cherif was accidentally freed on October 29 but police were only informed of the mistake on Tuesday, prompting a high-profile manhunt.

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

Mr Lammy said: “We inherited a prison system in crisis and I’m appalled at the rate of releases in error this is causing.

“I’m determined to grip this problem, but there is a mountain to climb which cannot be done overnight.

“That is why I have ordered new tough release checks, commissioned an independent investigation into systemic failures and begun overhauling archaic paper-based systems still used in some prisons.”

The Met said the search for Kaddour-Cherif had required “significant resources”.

He was arrested at 11.30am for being unlawfully at large and on suspicion of assaulting an emergency worker in relation to a previous incident, and was taken into police custody.

Kaddour-Cherif said it was not his fault as he was arrested by Metropolitan Police officers in north London following his mistaken release from prison.

Footage of the 24-year-old’s arrest, captured by Sky News, showed him initially standing by the passenger window of a police van before officers arrested him.

Wearing a grey hoodie, black beanie and black backpack, he denied that he was “Brahim” and, when asked if he knew him, said: “Everyone knows him, he’s in (the) news.”

Police brought him to the back of the van and held up an image of Kaddour-Cherif next to his face before un-cuffing and re-cuffing his hands behind his back. Officers searched his backpack and found a laptop, umbrella and wallet.

Before he was put in the back of the van, he turned to those gathered and said: “Look at the justice of the UK, they release people by mistake, after this they ‘ah ah ah’, it’s not my f****** fault.”

A man who said he called the police about Kaddour-Cherif told the PA news agency he recognised him from a newspaper photograph.

Algerian Nadjib Mekdhia, 50, who is homeless but stays in the Finsbury Park area of north London, said he was walking past a cafe on Blackstock Road on Friday morning when he saw Kaddour-Cherif.

He told PA: “I was by the Algerian cafe. The individual approached to me. I don’t know what he was doing. I recognised him. I asked a member of the public to give me a phone.

“Straight away I called the police. The police vans came quickly.”

He added: “I am glad he is in prison. We do not need people like that in our community.

“I am proud Algerian. I am proud British. We do the right thing.”

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

The mistaken releases have brought fresh pressure on Justice Secretary David Lammy, following the high-profile jail blunder of Hadush Kebatu, the now-deported migrant at the heart of protests in Epping, Essex.

Stronger security checks were announced for prisons and an independent investigation was launched into releases in error after Kebatu was accidentally freed on October 24, prompting a three-day manhunt.

The Ethiopian national had been jailed for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl and a woman, but was freed by mistake instead of being sent to an immigration detention centre. 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.

Of the total, 90 releases in error were of violent or sex offenders.

Mr Lammy, who is also Deputy Prime Minister, has faced criticism over his handling of the latest release in error after he repeatedly refused to confirm at Prime Minister’s Questions whether any more asylum seekers had been wrongly released since Kebatu.

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

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

He first entered the UK legally on a visit visa in 2019 but was flagged as an automatic case of having likely overstayed on February 6 2020.

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

But he has also faced questions over Kaddour-Cherif’s release, after he told MPs last Monday those checks were effective immediately, two days before the wrongful release on October 29.

Meanwhile Mr Lammy said on Thursday that engineers, analysts and designers will be sent into prisons “within 48 hours” to roll out technology aimed at reducing human error and modernising the “paper-based” processes that have led to mistaken releases.