Release date
British police were carrying out two further raids on Wednesday following news that two prisoners had been mistakenly released from prison in the past week, just days after the government introduced stricter testing.
Police said the pair were wrongfully released from Wandsworth Prison in south-west London and special measures were taken last year after another inmate escaped by clinging to the underside of a food delivery truck.
The Metropolitan Police said Brahim Kadour Sherif, 24, was wrongfully released on October 29, while Surrey Police said they were searching for William Smith, 35, who was also wrongly released on Monday.
The Met Office said it was first informed of Kadour Sherif’s release on Tuesday, six days after a man who entered the UK legally in 2019 but overstayed and was in the early stages of deportation proceedings was mistakenly released.
The newspaper said Algerian national Kadour Sherif, who is serving a sentence for trespassing with intent to steal, is also known to use other variations of his name, including Ibrahim.
He also acknowledged that he is a registered sex offender and was convicted of indecent assault a year ago.
Commander Paul Trivers, who is overseeing the investigation, said: “The Sheriff has had a six-day head start, but we are working urgently to close the gap and locate him.”
Meanwhile, Surrey Police said Smith was sentenced to 45 months in prison on Monday for multiple fraud charges and was coincidentally released on the same day.
The untimely release is a further embarrassment to the prison service, which has been under-resourced for years, and to the New Labor government, which returned to power last July after a 14-year hiatus.
The release comes just two weeks after the asylum seeker, who was at the center of a surge in anti-immigration protests over the summer, was mistakenly released from Chelmsford Prison in east London on October 24.
Ethiopian national Hadish Gerberslassie Kebatu, who was sentenced to 12 months in prison for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl, was arrested after a two-day manhunt and is currently being deported to Ethiopia.
After the Kebatu raid, the government announced increased security at the prison and launched an independent investigation into the blunder.
Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy, who is also the justice minister, said he was “absolutely outraged” and blamed the previous government for the plight facing prisons.
Shortly before news of the latest incident broke, Mr Lamy repeatedly refused to confirm during questioning in the House of Commons whether more asylum seekers had been wrongly released since Mr Kebatu was mistakenly released from prison.
Government figures show 262 prisoners were mistakenly released in the year to March 2025, an increase of 128% on the previous 12 months.
A Conservative Party spokesperson said the Labor government must take responsibility as the spike in numbers was directly linked to Labor’s decision to release some prisoners early to prevent prisons from reaching capacity.
Additional sources of information β’ AP