Overview
- A 24-year-old Algerian released in error on 29 October was spotted by a member of the public in Islington and re-arrested, the Metropolitan Police said.
- Officials recorded 262 mistaken releases in the 12 months to March 2025, nearly 130% more than the previous year, including 233 from prisons and 29 from courts.
- Thirty-seven of the errors occurred during a government emergency early-release measure launched last year, and BBC reporting says nearly 40,000 prisoners were freed early from September 2024 to June 2025.
- Unions and reports cite faulty IT that forced manual sentence calculations and lost or misplaced warrants during transfers as key administrative failures.
- Political pressure on Justice Secretary David Lammy has intensified, with Prime Minister Keir Starmer offering public support, as another wrongly freed Ethiopian sex offender was later detained and removed from the UK.