PM 'angry and frustrated' at mistaken prisoner releases

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said he is "angry and frustrated" over the mistaken release of two prisoners from Wandsworth Prison in London.

One of the men, Billy Smith, handed himself in on Thursday but Brahim Kaddour-Cherif, an Algerian sex offender, is still at large.

Speaking publicly about the releases for the first time, the prime minister blamed the strain on the prison system on the "failures" under the previous government but added "I recognise it's our job to step up and to fix this."

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

Justice Secretary David Lammy had promised the "strongest checks ever" to prevent further errors following the accidental release of migrant sex offender Hadush Kebatu from Chelmsford prison in Essex last month.

Speaking from the COP30 environment summit in Brazil, Sir Keir said the wrongful releases that emerged this week were "intolerable".

He said a review was being carried out to establish "what's gone wrong" adding: "systems must be in place to stop this happening again."

Dame Lynne Owens, a former deputy commissioner of the Met Police, has been tasked with establishing why Kebatu was released and will make recommendations to prevent future incorrect releases.

In a video posted to social media, Lammy said a "digital rapid response unit" would be put in all prisons within 48 hours.

He said the unit would focus on "using cutting edge tech to reduce some of the human error" in the release process.

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 police manhunt is continuing for 24-year-old Kaddour-Cherif, 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 BBC 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 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 said he was now back in custody, after handing himself in.

On Wednesday, before news about the released prisoners emerged, Lammy, standing in for Sir Keir Starmer at Prime Minister's Questions, was asked five times by Conservative James Cartlidge whether any other "asylum-seeking offender" has been accidentally let out of prison.

Lammy has since been under fire from the Tories for refusing to answer that question when he knew at that point about the mistaken release of Kaddour-Cherif.

Speaking on Thursday, while on a visit to the building site of a new prison in Leicestershire, Lammy said he did "not have all of the detail" when he faced questions in the Commons and did not want to risk "misleading" MPs.

He acknowledged that "the rate of release by error is too high" adding: "it has to come down."

"We had 800 errors under the last government, this has now gone on for a generation," said Lammy.

"Our prison system is in crisis so we have to bare down on this but we have a mountain to climb."

Asked why his new checks had not prevented the releases, Lammy said Kaddour-Cherif had been let out before the tighter rules were implemented.

However, speaking in the Commons last Monday, Lammy had said those checks were effective immediately, two days before the wrongful release of Kaddour-Cherif.

When asked about the discrepancy on Thursday night, the prime minister said: "David Lammy can speak for himself on that. And I'm absolutely clear that he's setting out the facts to the best of his knowledge, and that's the right thing for him to do."

Ministry of Justice sources say Lammy did not misspeak and that the department believes the mistakes that triggered the release of Kaddour-Cherif happened at the end of September, before 27 October when the new checks started.

The Prison Governors' Association has 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 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.

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