On Friday, October 24, 2025, an error at HMP Chelmsford prison in Essex set off a chain of events that has reverberated through the British justice system and beyond. Hadush Kebatu, a 38-year-old Ethiopian national convicted just four weeks prior for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl and a woman in Epping, was mistakenly released from prison while awaiting transfer to an immigration detention centre for deportation. The blunder not only sparked a frantic nationwide manhunt but also ignited a fierce debate about the competence and integrity of the UK’s criminal justice and immigration systems.
According to reporting by Daily Mail and The Independent, Kebatu’s release was not a simple slip-up. After being let out, the confused Kebatu attempted to return to the prison multiple times, only to be turned away by staff and directed to the local railway station. Left to his own devices, he traveled to London, where he was finally apprehended by Metropolitan Police officers in Finsbury Park on Sunday morning, October 26, 2025. The images of his arrest—Kebatu in a dark puffer jacket and hoodie, bundled into a police van—were splashed across national media, fueling public outrage and political scrutiny.
Justice Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy wasted no time in announcing an independent investigation into the incident. The probe, to be chaired by Dame Lynne Owens, former Metropolitan Police deputy commissioner, will not only examine how Kebatu was mistakenly released but will also interview the victims to assess the impact on their lives. Lammy acknowledged to MPs that the release was "unacceptable" and blamed "human error," but critics argue that the problems run much deeper.
Indeed, this is not the first time HMP Chelmsford has made headlines for releasing prisoners in error. As The Independent reported, in June 2023 the prison was duped by an email masquerading as official Royal Courts of Justice correspondence, which instructed staff to release convicted fraudster Junead Ahmed. Ahmed, who had posed as a doctor to commit fraud, was released and only rearrested after staff became suspicious of subsequent fake emails ordering the release of more inmates. The 2023 incident exposed glaring vulnerabilities in the prison’s procedures—vulnerabilities that, critics argue, remain unresolved.
Government figures published in July 2025 reveal a staggering 262 prisoners were released in error in the year to March 2025—a 128% increase from the previous year’s 115. The number of erroneous releases has risen from an average of nine per month in 2023 to 17 per month between January and June 2024. Charlie Taylor, the chief inspector of prisons, told The Independent that such mistakes are "endemic" and symptomatic of a system in chaos. "This is a case that has hit the news because it’s an incredibly high-profile prisoner convicted of a very serious offence. But the worry is that below the radar, this stuff has been going on a lot recently and I’m worried about it," Taylor said.
The scale and frequency of these errors have prompted urgent action from the government. Lammy announced that new safeguards would be implemented immediately, including a requirement for a duty governor to be physically present for any foreign criminal removals from HMP Chelmsford under the Early Removals Scheme (ERS). All removals from the prison under this scheme have been suspended for the week, and a prison officer involved in the Kebatu case has been suspended pending the outcome of the investigation. Lammy also ordered an "urgent review" of release procedures and introduced what he described as "the strongest release checks that have ever been in place," including a three-page compulsory checklist for all releases. "A single release in error is one too many," Lammy told the House of Commons.
Yet, not everyone is convinced that these measures will fix the underlying issues. The Prison Governors' Association, in a statement, said that while the new checks are "undoubtedly" a response to the latest failure, "a checklist won’t cut it—but neither will pantomime politics change our prisons for good." The group suggested that real solutions require addressing systemic problems, not just adding bureaucratic hurdles. Chelmsford MP Marie Goldman echoed this sentiment, warning against "scapegoating a single prison officer for systemic failure" and calling for the resignation of any prison governors found responsible.
Mark Fairhurst, national chairman of the Prison Officers' Association, pointed to chronic undertraining and intolerable pressure on staff as root causes of such mistakes. Speaking to The Guardian, he said, "These issues should have been addressed a long time ago, but as usual, our employer waits for a headline and then acts." He described the suspension of a single officer as unjust, given the involvement of more senior staff, and highlighted that the pressures and lack of training have been flagged to the prison service "for at least a decade."
The release of Kebatu has also reignited political tensions over immigration and public safety. Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, branded the incident a "national embarrassment," telling the Commons, "This Justice Secretary could not deport the only small boat migrant who wanted—no—who tried to be deported. Calamity Lammy strikes again." The case has become a flashpoint for critics of the government’s immigration policies, with Kebatu’s crimes and subsequent release sparking protests and counter-protests in Epping and outside hotels housing asylum seekers across the country.
Adding to the controversy, Professor David Wilson, a former prison governor and leading criminologist, suggested on the "This Much is True Crime" podcast that Kebatu’s release could have been an inside job. "I just don’t know any circumstances that would have happened by accident. I’m prepared to be proven wrong. But for me this reeks of something much more serious," Wilson said. He pointed to the possibility of a rogue staff member acting deliberately to cause political embarrassment, though he conceded that human error could not be ruled out. "If you can turn a prison officer, if you can corrupt them to turn a blind eye to drones coming in with drugs, knives, mobile phones—who is to say you can’t get a prison officer to actively release somebody that shouldn’t be released because that will cause major political embarrassment to the government of the day?"
Publican and broadcaster Adam Brooks, writing in GB News, offered a more personal perspective, describing Kebatu’s release as a "snapshot of wider collapse" in the justice system. Brooks recounted the emotional toll on victims and their families, including his own experience of informing the victim’s father. "That’s not justice, that’s a system that’s lost all sense of duty and decency," Brooks wrote, underscoring the human cost of bureaucratic failures.
As the independent inquiry gets underway, the Kebatu case stands as a stark warning of the dangers posed by systemic failures in Britain’s prisons. With public trust shaken and political tempers flaring, the question now is whether the government’s latest round of reforms will address the root causes—or simply paper over the cracks.
