David Lammy under pressure after two prisoners released by mistake | UK News

Justice Secretary David Lammy is under growing pressure after two prisoners were released from the same London jail by mistake.

Lammy, who is also deputy prime minister, had promised to introduce the “strongest checks ever” to prevent further errors after the accidental release of migrant sex offender Hadush Kebatu from Chelmsford prison in Essex last month.

But on Wednesday it emerged two more men – including an Algerian sex offender – had been mistakenly released from Wandsworth prison over the past week.

Conservative shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick said Lammy has “got to get a grip”, describing the situation as “a total shambles”.

MPs will not have a chance to press Lammy over the issue until Tuesday, when the House of Commons returns after a short recess.

However, the justice secretary is expected to speak to the media during a visit to a prison later.

A police manhunt is continuing for 24-year-old Algerian national Brahim Kaddour-Cherif, a registered sex offender who was convicted of indecent exposure in November 2024.

He is understood to have entered the UK legally on a visitor’s visa in 2019 but overstayed and was in the initial stages of a deportation process.

Kaddour-Cherif was released by mistake from HMP Wandsworth on 29 October but police were only told on Tuesday.

Sources told the the prison’s governor was not at the jail on the day Kaddour-Cherif was released because he was carrying out the inquiry into how Kebatu was released by accident from HMP Chelmsford.

Meanwhile, 35-year-old William Smith, who was given a custodial sentence for fraud on Monday, was wrongly released from Wandsworth prison the same day because of a court clerical error.

Surrey Police say he is now back in custody, after handing himself in.

During Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, Lammy, who was standing in for Sir Keir Starmer, was repeatedly asked by the Conservatives whether any asylum-seeking offender had been accidentally let out of prison since Kebatu was released but he avoided answering directly.

As PMQs was ending the Met Police released a statement revealing a foreign prisoner – later named as Kaddour-Cherif – had been released by mistake last week, with the force told on Tuesday.

The has been told Lammy was informed about the case on Tuesday night.

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said that facts were still emerging as PMQs got underway at noon on Wednesday and Lammy had not been told key details including the man’s immigration status.

The spokesperson also pointed out Lammy had been asked questions about the release of an asylum seeker, which Kaddour-Cherif was not.

“The [deputy prime minister] waited until after PMQs and further facts had emerged before making a statement,” the spokesperson added.

But Jenrick accused Lammy of “a dereliction of duty” for refusing to answer the questions put to him during PMQs when he knew about the mistaken release of Kaddour-Cherif.

The shadow justice secretary also criticised his opposite number for going shopping for a new suit before PMQs, “rather than gripping his department”.

In an attempt to explain why he had not been wearing a Remembrance poppy at the start of the session, Lammy told MPs on Wednesday: “I bought a new suit this morning because my godmother said that she would be watching.”

Sources close to Lammy have now said he was not shopping on Wednesday morning and bought his new suit earlier in the week.

Junior justice minister Alex Davies-Jones – who was put up for interviews on Thursday morning rather than Lammy – said the government had called an urgent meeting of prison governors to find out “what is happening on the ground”.

She told the tech experts were being brought in to help prison staff, who she said were dealing with an “archaic” paper-based records system.

Davies-Jones said she understood the public anger over accidental releases but argued the government had inherited a prison and justice system in “crisis”, which “isn’t going to be fixed overnight”.

Prisoners being released by mistake has been a problem for some time, however the numbers have been rising in recent years.

According to the latest figures, 262 prisoners in England and Wales were mistakenly released in the year leading to March 2025, up 128% from 115 the previous year.

The Prison Governors’ Association said the number of prisoners being released in error was “deeply concerning” but they had happened “under every government’s watch”.

“Achieving a zero-error outcome would demand substantial investment in staff training, modern IT infrastructure, and recruitment, all within a system already stretched by competing priorities,” the association said in a statement.

“Successive governments have accepted this level of risk for decades. In that context, it feels disingenuous to see politicians attempt to extract political gain from a prison system in crisis.”

Jenrick admitted the previous Conservative government’s record on prisons was “poor and unacceptable”.

However, he added: “It’s a total shambles what we’re seeing right now where the number of people being accidentally released from our prisons has risen off the charts in the last year, under this Labour government.”