Overview
- A 34-year-old man mistakenly released on November 3 was charged with stalking the same day, rearrested in Leicestershire late Tuesday, and returned to custody.
- Ministry of Justice data show 91 mistaken releases between April 1 and October 31 this year, following 262 in the year to March, including dozens involving violent offenders.
- Recent high-profile errors include the October 24 release of Hadush Kebatu from HMP Chelmsford and two subsequent cases at HMP Wandsworth involving Brahim Kaddour-Cherif and William Smith.
- Officials and inspections cite overcrowded prisons, inexperienced and overstretched staff, court backlogs, and faulty digital systems that force manual sentence calculations as key drivers of errors.
- Justice Secretary David Lammy has ordered an urgent review of pre-release checks and outlined operational reforms, with tougher security checks and an independent investigation already under way.