Wrongly freed sex offender jailed for another 26 weeks after biting police
An asylum-seeking sex offender, whose mistaken release from Wandsworth Prison last year led to a national manhunt, has been jailed for another 26 weeks, for biting two police officers.
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Algerian national Brahim Kaddour-Cherif, 24, was handed the sentence at Highbury Corner Magistrates Court, for the assaults which took place at a London Underground train station in July 2025.
Earlier this month, Kaddour-Cherif was given another 188-day jail term for possession of a knife and for stealing bikes from a garden shed.
Magistrates heard that Kaddour-Cherif has an outstanding asylum claim and is due to be interviewed by Home Office officials in the coming days.
Appearing by video link from HMP Pentonville, the 24-year-old asked the court, “Why are you treating me like this?” as he complained that his defence of assaulting the police officers hadn’t been read out.
Kaddour-Cherif pleaded guilty to the charges on January 15.
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Prosecutors say an off-duty police officer, while travelling home from work, spotted Cherif take a sleeping man’s phone from him on board a train, at Blackhorse Road Underground Station in east London.
When challenged, he punched the officer, before later biting him and another PC who had come to support.
Mrs Robb JP, in sentencing him, said: "We have no doubt that both of these assaults were extremely serious.
"It was also prolonged and quite nasty, causing psychological harm.
"We do believe that this crosses the custody threshold and therefore we are committing you to prison."
The Algerian national, who had been overstaying his visa in the UK since 2020, was convicted for exposing himself in a park in July 2024.
He had also been jailed for possession of a knife and theft that same year.
In October 2025, he was mistakenly released from Wandsworth jail in south London, while awaiting a trial for the knife crime and burglary offences he was jailed for earlier this month.
It was six days before the error had been spotted, when the court called prison staff to set up a video link for his next hearing.
Brahim Kaddour-Cherif was one of two men wrongly let of Wandsworth Prison in the same week.
The scandal sparked national outrage, happening just days after another migrant, Hadush Kebatu, had also been mistakenly released from jail.
He was serving a sentence for sexually assaulting a teenage girl in Epping, Essex, where he had been placed to live in an asylum hotel.
Kebatu has since been deported.
Official data from July last year showed that 262 prisoners had been released in error in the year to March 2025, up 128% on the year before.