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The release of the sex-attack migrant whose offences sparked protests around the country could have been an inside job, a former prison governor has claimed.
Hadush Kebatu was set free from HMP Chelmsford in error on Friday just four weeks after being sentenced for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl and a woman in Epping, Essex, while being housed at an asylum seeker hotel.
The 38-year-old was awaiting transfer to an immigration detention centre ahead of his planned deportation back to Ethiopia, but bungling prison staff freed him instead.
Incredibly, it later emerged how the 'confused' migrant tried to return to the prison multiple times, only to be turned away and directed to the railway station by staff where he then travelled to London.
Kebatu's release sparked a nationwide manhunt until he was finally caught in Finsbury Park, north London, on Sunday morning.
David Lammy, the justice secretary and deputy prime minister, has confirmed there will be an independent investigation and yesterday blamed 'human error' for the blunder.
But the accidental release of such a high-profile prisoner has sparked accusations that something more sinister could have gone on behind bars.
Professor David Wilson, a former prison governor and leading criminologist, claimed Kebatu could have been released by a rogue member of staff to cause a 'major political embarrassment'.
Speaking to former This Morning editor Martin Frizell on their This Much is True Crime podcast, Prof Wilson said: 'I don't see a set of circumstances, knowing the prison service as I do from having worked as a prison governor, how no prison service governor, no member of staff would be aware that you should not be releasing Kebatu but in fact taking him to an immigration and detention centre.
'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.'
He added: 'I'm absolutely aware of the amount of corruption going on in our prisons at the moment. Who knows? If you can turn a prison officer, if you can corrupt them to turn a blind eye to drones coming in with drugs, drones coming in with knives, drones coming in with mobile phones.
'Who is to say you can't get a prison officer not just to turn a blind eye but to actively release somebody that shouldn't be released because that will cause major political embarrassment to the government of the day.'
Prof Wilson, who began his career as Assistant Governor at HMP Wormwood Scrubs before becoming a professor, admitted there could have been human error but pointed out that HMP Chelmsford is a remand centre.
'Therefore its entire function, its only reason for being is to process people in and back out again,' he said.
'Therefore it is dealing with warrants and calculations all the time. That is its function.
'And for the highest profile prisoner, because he was. He was the highest profile prisoner in prison service to be mistakenly released, to me, just smells really fishy.
'I'm prepared to accept human error but for me there is something that needs to be really thoroughly investigated about how the highest profile prisoner in our country was wrongly released as opposed to being processed to an immigration and detention centre.'
Quizzing Prof Wilson about his claims, Mr Frizell said: 'You are suggesting, this is quite a bold accusation here, that it may well be someone that supports the cause of Reform or those who are very against immigration and the immigration policies could have done this deliberately, what just to cause trouble, to highlight it?'
Prof Wilson, a emeritus professor of criminology at Birmingham City University, replied: 'I think that's what I'm saying. I am prepared to accept there has to be an investigation and it may very well come down to a genuine human error.
'But don't you think it feeds into the narrative of Broken Britain, a narrative in which we are criticising the one in, one out system with France. The first guy that gets removed in the one in one out system is able to get on a small boat to come back.
'Here we have the highest profile prisoner in the country, who is the cause of riots, being released wrongly.
'That for me feeds into a narrative. There will be some staff, not just in Chelmsford, there will be prison officers who will be attracted to the narrative saying there is something wrong with our immigration system.
'This isn't about Labour being unable to read the room. I can not see a set of circumstances in which the highest profile prisoner in the entire prison system gets released mistakenly.'
It comes as Mr Lammy said an independent inquiry into how Kebatu was released from prison will look at how to prevent further 'rising' releases in error.
Kebatu was wrongly freed from HMP Chelmsford on Friday morning instead of being sent to an immigration detention centre.
He was set for deportation under an early removals scheme (ERS) for foreign national offenders, but was released into the community in 'what appears to have been in human error', Mr Lammy told MPs.
The migrant, who had been living at the Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex when he sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl and a woman, later travelled to London and was arrested on Sunday morning in Finsbury Park after a two-day manhunt.
In the Commons on Monday, Mr Lammy confirmed stronger release checks will come into force immediately while shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick branded the incident a 'national embarrassment'.
Mr Lammy said: 'I've been clear from the outset that a mistake of this nature is unacceptable.
'We must get to the bottom of what happened and take immediate action to try and prevent similar releases in error to protect the public from harm.'
Former Metropolitan Police deputy commissioner Dame Lynne Owens will chair the probe and will speak to the victims in the case about how the incident impacted on them, Mr Lammy said.
He added: 'Her report will highlight points of failure and make recommendations to help prevent further releases in error, which have been rising year on year since 2021 - going from nine per month on average in 2023, to 17 per month in the period spanning January to June 2024.
'And I'm clear that a single release in error is one too many, which is why we have launched this independent investigation.'
A prison officer has been suspended while the probe takes place.
The deputy prime minister also said he ordered an 'urgent review' into the checks that take place when someone is released from prison, and that new safeguards have been added that amount to the 'strongest release checks that have ever been in place'.
As well as further accountability for senior staff to check processes, Mr Lammy also said that no removals from HMP Chelmsford under the ERS will take place this week.
Foreign criminals facing deportation will also be able to be released from prison only when a duty governor is physically present under the changes, Mr Lammy said.
In a statement, the Prison Governors' Association said the additional checks are 'undoubtedly' the result of the need to do something following such an apparent failure, but whether they will address the issues 'we will not know until the issues have been identified'.
The representative group added: 'A checklist won't cut it - but neither will pantomime politics change our prisons for good.'
Elsewhere in the Commons, Chelmsford MP Marie Goldman said that 'scapegoating a single prison officer for systemic failure is unacceptable', adding that any prison governors found to be at fault over the incident should resign.
Earlier on Monday, Mark Fairhurst, the national chairman of the prison officers' union, told the Guardian that a single member of staff had been 'unjustly suspended' while there had been other more senior staff members involved.
Reacting to Mr Lammy's statement, he added that a severe lack of training for staff has been highlighted to the prison service 'for at least a decade' and that the pressure on staff is 'intolerable' and could lead to mistakes.
'These issues should have been addressed a long time ago, but as usual, our employer waits for a headline and then acts,' he said.
It comes as the chief inspector of prisons said that mistakes over prisoner releases are happening 'all the time' and are symptomatic of the chaos within the system.
Charlie Taylor said prisoners being released early, in error or even late is an 'endemic problem' now that needs to be fixed by prison service leaders.
According to Government figures published in July, 262 prisoners were released in error in the year to March 2025 - a 128 per cent increase on 115 in the previous 12 months.
It is understood Kebatu, who crossed the Channel in a small boat to enter the UK on June 29, left prison with an amount of personal money but was not given a discharge grant to cover subsistence costs.
He was convicted of making inappropriate comments to a 14-year-old girl before he tried to kiss her on July 7 - just eight days after he arrived in the country on a small boat.
His trial also heard that a day later he sexually assaulted a woman by trying to kiss her, putting his hand on her leg and telling her she was pretty.
Kebatu was found guilty of five offences after a three-day trial at Chelmsford and Colchester magistrates' courts in September, and his sentencing hearing heard it was his 'firm wish' to be deported.
Kebatu's crime sparked protests and counter-protests on the streets in Epping, and eventually outside hotels housing asylum seekers across the country.
Speaking in the Commons, Mr Jenrick claimed 'the only illegal migrants this Government are stopping are those that actually want to leave the UK'.
Responding to the Justice Secretary, Mr Jenrick said: 'Dear oh dear. Where to begin? This Justice Secretary could not deport the only small boat migrant who wanted - no - who tried to be deported.
'Calamity Lammy strikes again. It's a national embarrassment and today the Justice Secretary feigns anger at what happened.'
Conservative former minister Caroline Johnson pressed Mr Lammy on how many prisoners released in error 'are still at large', to which he did not directly respond.
He said: 'There are a number of people released under different regimes. Some of them will be released at home and will be leading hopefully productive lives. Others will be back in prison. Some are recalled under licence.
'All of this will be examined by the independent, full investigation.'
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: 'This is pure speculative and irresponsible reporting, with no evidence to back it up. There is an investigation ongoing and all evidence so far points to this being a human error - not a conspiracy.'