Lisa Nandy defends David Lammy over prison release errors and scrutiny claims

Lisa Nandy said David Lammy is “gripping” the problem of mistaken releases from UK prisons as she rejected suggestions he had dodged scrutiny following a series of high-profile manhunts.

The Culture Secretary defended the Justice Secretary’s performance during this week’s Deputy Prime Minister’s Questions after he was criticised for not revealing details about an inmate who had been freed in error.

Speaking on Sunday’s broadcast media round, Ms Nandy said she had been on the frontbench in the Commons where she saw Mr Lammy “weighing up in his mind what information” to share in public.

Asked on Sky News’s Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips programme whether his evasiveness made it more difficult to trust Government ministers on the issue, the Culture Secretary said: “I don’t accept that he was being evasive.

“I was in the House of Commons chamber, I was there, I was sitting next to the Home Secretary, and I could see that he was weighing up in his mind what information to release.

“He was asked about an asylum seeker. The case in question was not an asylum seeker.

“And I think all of us as ministers have an obligation to make sure that when we do speak about matters of such significance to the public and put information into the public domain, that we do that with care and make sure that the full facts are presented.”

During the session, shadow defence secretary James Cartlidge had asked the Justice Secretary about whether any more asylum seekers had been mistakenly freed since the blunder that triggered a two-day manhunt for child sex offender Hadush Kebatu last month.

At this point, police had been alerted that Algerian sex offender Brahim Kaddour-Cherif – who is understood not to be an asylum seeker – was at large after being wrongly released from HMP Wandsworth the previous week.

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

He has since faced further questions after he told MPs last Monday tougher security checks were effective immediately, two days before the wrongful release on October 29, and then later claimed Kaddour-Cherif had been freed before such measures had started.

It emerged on Saturday that two prisoners known to be still at large were mistakenly released last year, while another two freed in error in June 2025 are also understood to remain missing.

Ms Nandy said on Sunday: “In terms of the numbers that have been released, the figure that is publicly available is four, but I haven’t had any discussions with the Justice Secretary (David Lammy) about that this morning.

“What I can tell you is that under the last government, for quite some time there were on average 17 wrongful releases. Under this Government that has risen (to) 22.

“That is completely unacceptable. It was unacceptable before, it’s unacceptable now.

“Even one is too many, and the Justice Secretary is gripping this by appointing Dame Lynn Owens, who is the former director of the National Crime Agency, to make sure that we really grip this, starting with the antiquated paper-based system that was developed in the 1980s that is still being used, building new prisons, and making sure that we have additional checks so that people aren’t wrongly released.”

Mr Lammy admitted on Friday there is a “mountain to climb” to tackle the crisis in the prisons system after the police search for Kaddour-Cherif following his release from Wandsworth last week, which Scotland Yard was 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, while Kaddour-Cherif was arrested in Finsbury Park on Friday.

The blunders have intensified pressure on Mr Lammy following the mistaken release of 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.

Mr Cartlidge said the Justice Secretary’s refusal to confirm whether any more asylum seeker offenders had been wrongly released was a “profound mistake” that needs to be “looked into”.

“All I knew was we had a tip-off there was another such case, we didn’t know for certain,” he said.

“You can’t know for certain unless you’re running the department and he stood up and answered my questions.

“He had at his fingertips the facts and he’s in front of Parliament, he has a Ministerial Code to be transparent, and he didn’t answer the questions at all.

“And my judgment is that was a profound mistake and a discourtesy to Parliament, notwithstanding what it means for his adherence to the Ministerial Code.”

Meanwhile, chief inspector of prisons Charlie Taylor said the mistakes were both a result of an “overcomplicated” sentencing framework and a symptom of “a system that is close to breaking point.”

“The increasing frequency of these embarrassing and potentially dangerous mistakes is not just the result of an overcomplicated sentencing framework; it is a symptom of a system that is close to breaking point,” he wrote for the Telegraph.

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.”