Sex offender still at large after being wrongly freed from HMP Wandsworth was in UK illegally and awaiting deportation
Brahim Kaddour-Cherif has been on the run since Wednesday of last week
The Algerian sex offender mistakenly released from HMP Wandsworth last week was in the UK illegally and waiting to be deported.
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Brahim Kaddour-Cherif, who has been on the run for a week, was not an asylum seeker and entered the UK legally on a tourist visa in 2019.
However, he overstayed and was in the initial stages of being deported, it has been confirmed.
The 24-year-old was accidentally released from the jail on Wednesday last week.
However, the Metropolitan Police was only informed at lunchtime on Tuesday this week that he was missing.
Read more: TWO prisoners wrongly released in one week from blundering HMP Wandsworth
Kaddour-Cherif most-recently appeared at Westminster Magistrates' Court in September on a charge of failing to comply with sex offender reporting requirements.
He was serving time for trespass with an intent to steal but has previously committed sexual offences.
David Lammy, the Justice Secretary, was briefed about the release on Tuesday night, and faces questions over whether he misled MPs after he repeatedly refused to tell the Commons whether another foreign criminal was loose.
The Deputy Prime Minister, who was standing in for Sir Keir Starmer at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, repeatedly refused to answer questions about the incident.
James Cartlidge, the shadow defence secretary, asked him five times whether any more mistaken releases had occurred.
Cartlidge asked: "Can he reassure the House that since Kebatu was released, no other asylum-seeking offender has been accidentally let out of prison?"
Lammy refused to do so and said: "Let me just remind him that he was a justice minister that allowed our prisons to get to this state in the first place and it’s now for us to fix the mess that we’ve got into."
However, he later responded by saying "victims deserve better and the public deserve answers."
He added: "That is why I have already brought in the strongest checks ever to clamp down on such failures and ordered an independent investigation, led by Dame Lynne Owens to uncover what went wrong and address the rise in accidental releases which has persisted for too long."
Kaddour-Cherif was convicted in November 2024 of indecent exposure relating to an incident in March that year, the Times report.
He was sentenced to an 18-month community order and placed on the sex offenders' register for five years.
Just hours after the Met appealed for information on Kaddour-Cherif, Surrey Police then confirmed second Wandsworth inmate William Smith, 35, was also missing.
Smith was sentenced to 45 months for multiple fraud offences at Croydon Crown Court on Monday but was then released in error.
He was last seen wearing a navy long sleeve jumper with the Nike brand ‘tick’ across the front in white, navy blue tracksuit bottoms with a Nike ‘tick’ in white on the left pocket, and black trainers.
Smith came from Woking and had committed most of his offences there, according to Will Forster, the town’s Liberal Democrat MP.
He said: "It's utterly unacceptable that this person was wrongly released, especially on top of Brahim Kaddour-Cherif’s mistaken release from the same prison last week.
The mistakes follow the release on October 24 from Chelmsford prison in Essex of Hadush Kebatu, an Ethiopian migrant convicted of sex offences.
He was arrested in London 48 hours later and has been deported. Hadush Kebatu speaking, wearing a black puffer jacket.
The prime minister’s spokesman said "one mistaken release is too many" and the latest case would be included in a review that Dame Lynne Owens is conducting into the Ketabu release.
A spokesperson for the MOJ said on Wednesday evening: "The crisis in the prison system this government inherited is such that basic information about individual cases can take unacceptably long to reach Ministers.
"On entering the House, facts were still emerging about the case and the DPM (Deputy Prime Minister) had not been accurately informed of key details including the offender's immigration status.
"No media story about the individual case was yet in the public domain and it was and remains subject to a live police investigation.
"The DPM was asked questions about the release of an asylum seeker. As was confirmed after PMQs by the Home Office, the individual was not an asylum seeker.
"The DPM waited until after PMQs and further facts had emerged before making a statement."