Deported:    Migrant Sex Offender Freed by UK Prison Blunder

 

A convicted sex offender who was mistakenly released from a British prison has been deported to Ethiopia, the Home Office confirmed.

 

Hadush Kebatu, who had arrived in the UK by small boat in June 2023, was jailed for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl and a woman in Essex while staying at an asylum hotel. He was supposed to be transferred from HMP Chelmsford to an immigration detention centre for deportation under the government’s Early Removal Scheme for foreign criminals — but was instead freed last Friday in what officials called a “human error.”

 

The blunder triggered a nationwide manhunt lasting two days before Kebatu was captured in north London on Sunday, after a member of the public recognised him near Finsbury 

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said the mistake “should never have happened” and promised to hold those responsible to account. “I share the public’s anger,” she said, adding that Kebatu’s deportation “makes our streets safer.”

 

Justice Secretary David Lammy has launched an independent investigation led by Dame Lynne Owens, the former Metropolitan Police deputy commissioner, to find out how Kebatu was released and whether staff were properly trained. A prison officer has been suspended, and all deportations from HMP Chelmsford have been paused.

 

Kebatu’s case has reignited public anger over illegal migration and foreign offenders, particularly after protests outside the Epping asylum hotel where he had been housed. His mistaken release adds to a growing list of administrative blunders in the prison system, with Lammy confirming that such errors have increased each year since 2021.

 

Key Takeaways:

• Convicted migrant sex offender mistakenly released from UK prison.

• Captured after two-day manhunt and deported to Ethiopia.

• Government launches inquiry as prison blunders rise nationwide.

 

Source: BBC News

 

 

 

 

 

I don't understand why he wasn't deported in the first place?

 

Or, why, having been accidentally released, it suddenly became so easy to deport him?