At least four prisoners released by mistake remain at large, BBC said

At least four prisoners released by mistake remain at large, the BBC has been told.

These are among 262 prisoners in England and Wales wrongfully released in the year to March, up from 115 the previous year.

The new information comes as the government is under increasing pressure after a series of high-profile cases of prisoners being wrongly released.

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

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

Their releases came after migrant sex offender Hadush Kebatu, who arrived in the UK on a small boat, was mistakenly released from HMP Chelmsford in Essex late last month.

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “The vast majority of wrongfully released offenders quickly return to prison, and we will do everything we can to work with the police to capture the few who are still in the community.”

But there has been widespread criticism of the government’s handling of the issue.

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.”

A spokesman for the Liberal Democrats said “every resource must be devoted” to finding the prisoners.

“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.

In a statement, Lammy said: “We inherited a prison system in crisis and I am appalled by 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.”

The revelation that four prisoners remain at large after being mistakenly released came just hours after Kaddour-Cherif was arrested.

The Algerian national was seen by members of the public in the Finsbury Park area of ​​London on Friday morning.

He 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.

He had been let out of HMP Wandsworth, south London, on October 29, although police said he was not told this until Tuesday.

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 on Monday and sentenced to prison that same day.

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.

Additional reporting by George Wright