Algerian arrested by mistake released from HMP Wandsworth

Police have arrested an Algerian sex offender who was mistakenly released from prison.

Brahim Kaddour-Cherif, 24, was seen by members of the public in the Finsbury Park area of ​​London shortly before 11:30 GMT on Friday.

He had been let out of HMP Wandsworth, south London, on October 29. Police said they were not informed of the error until Tuesday, November 4.

Kaddour-Cherif was one of two men separately released from prison by mistake in the same week. Both are now back in custody, after William Smith turned himself in on Thursday.

The Algerian national was found guilty of indecent exposure in November 2024, in relation to an incident that occurred in March of that year.

He was given an 18-month community order and placed on the sex offenders’ register for five years.

At least four other prisoners released by mistake remain at large, the BBC reported.

Some 262 prisoners in England and Wales were mistakenly released in the year to March, down from 115 the previous year.

The missing prisoners reveal “the incompetence of this government”, shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick said.

“It should not be left to journalists to discover the facts. [Justice Secretary] “David Lammy must finally clarify how many prisoners have been accidentally released and how many remain at large.”

“All resources must be dedicated” to the search for the prisoners, said a spokesman for the Liberal Democrats.

“This is a disgrace and utter chaos. The media should not be needed to inform the public that prisoners are free after an accidental release,” said Jess Brown-Fuller.

The Metropolitan Police said Kaddour-Cherif was seen by a member of the public near Capital City College on Blackstock Road.

Officers responded “immediately” and he was arrested at 11:30, the force added.

He was arrested for being at liberty unlawfully and on suspicion of assaulting an emergency worker in relation to a previous incident.

Before being bundled into a police van, he addressed those gathered and said: “Look at the UK justice system, they release people by mistake… it’s not my fault.”

Algerian Nadjib Mekdhia, 50, who is homeless but lives in Finsbury Park, said he was passing by a cafe on Blackstock Road when he saw Kaddour-Cherif.

“I was in the Algerian cafe. The guy approached me. I don’t know what he was doing. I recognized him. I asked a member of the public to give me a phone.

“I immediately called the police. The police vans arrived quickly.”

He added: “I’m glad he’s in prison. We don’t need people like that in our community.

“I’m proud to be Algerian. I’m proud to be British. We do the right thing.”

Deelo Morgenegg, who witnessed the arrest, told the BBC he saw an “altercation” between Kaddour-Cherif and a person who may have recognized the mistakenly released prisoner.

Police then approached and questioned him, he said, adding: “Things started to escalate and they eventually handcuffed him.”

When Kaddour-Cherif was placed in the police van “he started kicking the van and shaking it and stomping on it,” Morgenegg said.

It is understood Kaddour-Cherif entered the UK legally on a visitor visa in 2019, but overstayed and was in the initial stages of deportation proceedings.

He was released the day after being found not guilty of violating sex offender registry requirements, but still faced other charges and should have remained in custody.

Representatives of prison officials said an administrative error meant there was no court order to hold him and he was released.

A series of prosecutions and court appearances dating back two years followed.

William Smith, the second man released from HMP Wandsworth last week, handed himself in again on Thursday. He was released Monday after being sentenced to prison earlier that day.

Their releases came just weeks after migrant sex offender Hadush Kebatu, who arrived in the UK on a small boat, was mistakenly released from HMP Chelmsford in Essex at the end of October.

Sources told the BBC that the governor of Wandsworth Prison was not in jail on the day Kaddour-Cherif was released because he was carrying out an investigation into how Kebatu was let go.

The inmate was caught just a three-minute walk from where Kebatu was arrested again.

In a statement following Friday’s arrest, Lammy said: “We inherited a prison system in crisis and I am appalled at the rate of wrongful releases this is causing.

“I am determined to confront this problem, but there is a mountain to climb that cannot be done overnight.

“That’s why I ordered strict new release controls, commissioned an independent investigation into systemic failures and began reviewing the archaic paper-based systems still used in some prisons.”

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said Lammy “doesn’t know what he’s doing”.

Reacting to footage of Kaddour-Cherif’s arrest, he added: “These people are making a mockery of our justice system. They clearly feel the UK is soft and the government needs to rein it in.”

“I also thought it was extraordinary that he was wandering around just outside the Justice Secretary’s own constituency. They are laughing at us and what the Labor government needs to do is show that they will enforce our laws.”

Lammy has been criticized for the erroneous releases, after he promised “the strictest checks ever” to avoid similar errors following the Kebatu case.

The new controls imply greater responsibility for the governor on duty, who is responsible for prison security. They will now have to supervise the release of all inmates, carrying out more checks and calculations, as well as completing more paperwork.

But these checks are proving to be a “major burden”, according to a senior prison official, who said they have “only increased paperwork”.

“Now in some cases it takes a day to complete checks to release someone and this is not helpful when staffing is an issue,” they said.

Prisons have been in a state of crisis for several years. The population has continued to increase and the number of staff is not keeping pace with the number of inmates.

Last summer there were only a hundred places available in men’s prisons. This triggered the government’s emergency release plan, under which some inmates would be released after serving 40% of their fixed-term sentence, instead of the usual 50%. It was implemented to reduce overcrowding and has already released nearly 40,000 inmates.

But this has also had an impact on the number of erroneous releases.

The government has pledged to build more prisons to alleviate overcrowding, and projections show the prison population will continue to grow. But this will take time and is not an instant solution.

Additional reporting by Theo Whyte and Alex Forster