Two of four prisoners still at large were freed by mistake last year

Two prisoners are still at large after being mistakenly released last year, it has emerged.

Another two, who are understood to have been freed in error in June this year, also remain missing.

It comes as ministers face mounting pressure over a series of high-profile manhunts, with Justice Secretary David Lammy admitting on Friday there is a “mountain to climb” to tackle the crisis in the prisons system.

Algerian sex offender Brahim Kaddour-Cherif, 24, was arrested on Friday after a police search following his release from HMP Wandsworth last week, which Scotland Yard said officers were only informed of on Tuesday.

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

The blunders have intensified pressure on Mr Lammy following the mistaken release of Hadush Kebatu, whose arrest for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl and a woman while living in an asylum hotel sparked protests in Epping, Essex.

Stronger security checks were announced for prisons and an independent investigation was launched into releases in error after the now-deported Ethiopian national was accidentally freed from HMP Chelmsford on October 24.

Some 262 inmates were mistakenly let out in the year to March 2025 – a 128% increase on the 115 in the previous 12 months, according to the latest Government figures.

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

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

He is understood to have overstayed his visitor’s visa to the UK after arriving in 2019, and was in the process of being deported.

Responding to news of the four missing prisoners on Friday, shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick said the Government was “relentlessly failing victims”.

He said: “The chaos continues. The Government keeps putting the British people at risk and is relentlessly failing victims. Does anyone have confidence in David Lammy?”

Mr Lammy said on Friday: “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.”