FLASH NEWS
UK mistakenly releases 12 more prisoners, two still at large
2025-12-02 18:12:35 / BOTA
UK Justice Secretary David Lammy has announced that 12 prisoners have been wrongly released over the past three weeks, two of whom are still at large.
The incident adds to 91 wrongful discharges recorded between April and October across England and Wales.
Lammy told the BBC that such errors were inevitable as prisons continued to rely on paper-based records, stressing that improvements would only come with a "fully digital system".
He described the recent errors as an increase, but said the trend was now on a downward trajectory.
Speaking later to ITV, Lammy said he had been assured that the two prisoners still missing on the run were neither violent nor sexual offenders.
"I will not provide details about these cases, because these are operational decisions made by the police," he said.
Public concern has intensified following the unjust release of prisoner Hadush Kebatu, who was imprisoned for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl and a woman while in an asylum hotel.
He has since been arrested again and deported to Ethiopia.
Two other prisoners, William Smith who later surrendered and Brahim Kaddour-Cherif who was remanded, were also mistakenly released at the same time, prompting the government to impose stricter controls on the release.
Since Lammy informed parliament on November 11 about the errors, accidental releases have continued.
He partly blamed personnel losses accumulated under the previous Conservative government, stressing that there was "a mountain to climb."
Official figures show that such errors increased by 128 percent last year, from 115 in 2023-2024 to 262 in 2024-2025.
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