The Labour minister for Courts and Legal Services says her party “has to get a grip” after David Lammy revealed 12 prisoners have been mistakenly released over the past three weeks.
Two of the prisoners remain at large.
Speaking on GB News, Sarah Sackman, who also serves as the Labour MP for Finchley and Golders Green, vowed that the number of prisoners released early was “simply not good enough”.
“The releases in error, and the trajectory that we’re on is simply not good enough.
“When we came in, there were 17 releases in error a month. That’s crept up to 22. And I agree, that’s not good enough. It’s really important that we grip the situation.
“The reason it’s happening is because we inherited a justice system under pressure. The reason we’re bringing forward the plans I’ve been speaking about today in our courts is because our courts are in crisis.
“Our prisons are also in crisis. It’s why we’re building more prison places. But there’s no doubt that we’ve got to get a grip.
“It’s why we’ve asked Dame Lynne Owens to conduct her review, to make recommendations for the sorts of checks that we can be making. It’s why we’ve instigated digital reforms in some of our busiest prisons to get a grip on the situation.
The Government ‘hast to get a grip’, Ms Sackman admitted on GB News
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GB NEWS
“But I, like you, want to see those numbers heading down.”
Dame Lynne was appointed to lead an Independent Review into Releases in Error after Ethiopian small boat migrant and sex offender Hadush Kebatu was accidentally freed from HMP Chelmsford.
The convict spent almost 48 hours at large in London until his subsequent arrest in Finsbury Park, and was later deported but not before he was handed £500.
Not long after Kebatu’s second arrest, it was revealed that a second illegal migrant, convicted of multiple offences including one of a sexual nature, had been accidentally released from HMP Wandsworth.
Robert Jenrick has unleashed scathing criticism of David Lammy over the mistaken releases of prisoners
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PARLIAMENT
Brahim Kaddour-Cherif, a 24-year-old Algerian sex offender, was later arrested after a member of the public sounded the alarm.
The Metropolitan Police were informed of his accidental release four days after he was freed on October 29.
Hours after authorities announced Kaddour-Cherif was at large, William Smith, who had been jailed in the same prison for fraud, was revealed to have been released in error.
Smith handed himself back into the authorities a day later.
Now more pressure has piled onto David Lammy to take action to address the issue with 262 prisoners being mistakenly released over the past year.
Leading the charge, Shadow Justice Secretary slammed the statistics, blaming “the confusion created by Labour’s botched early release scheme”, which had been originally installed to relieve prisons from overcrowding.
Reacting to the latest news that 12 prisoners had been released in error, the Newark MP raged: “The public are consistently being put at risk because of his shambolic management. When will this fiasco end?”
Dame Lynne’s findings will be announced in February 2026.