Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy is expected to be grilled in the Commons today after an asylum seeker sex offender was mistakenly released from prison.
Ethiopian national Hadush Kebatu was jailed for 12 months in September for the sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl and was wrongly freed from HMP Chelmsford on Friday morning instead of being sent to an immigration detention centre.
The migrant, who had been living at the Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex, when he assaulted the girl, travelled from Chelmsford to London and was arrested on Sunday morning in Finsbury Park.
The father of Kebatu’s teenage victim said now that he had been rearrested, he hoped the sex offender would be “deported immediately”. Sky News understands this may be tomorrow.
He said his family felt “massively let down and infuriated” by the migrant’s accidental release and that the police, the justice system and the Labour government had “all failed”.
Mr Lammy is expected to announce in parliament this afternoon that an independent inquiry into what happened will be launched, and to outline the parameters for it.
Mr Lammy, also the justice secretary, said one of the things that would be included in the inquiry was an exclusive Sky News interview with a delivery driver who spoke to Kebatu at HMP Chelmsford.
The man described Kebatu as being “confused” and was said to have returned to the prison reception four or five times before leaving the area on a train.
Lammy can expect some tough questions today. Pic: PA
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The release was heavily criticised by opposition politicians.
Chelmsford’s Liberal Democrat MP Marie Goldman called for a “rapid” national inquiry into the blunder that saw him walk free.
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Watch moments after Hadush Kebatu is arrested
‘Inept, shocking and unfit for purpose’
“It’s unacceptable that the safety of my constituents, and the people of London, was ever put at risk,” she said.
“The prison service had several chances to fix it and failed.
“The government has serious questions to answer and major work to do to make the system fit for purpose. It certainly isn’t at the moment.
A prison officer has been suspended following Ketabu’s release
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said he remains “shocked that this inept Labour government let him out in the first place”.
Zia Yusuf, head of policy for Reform UK, told Sky News: “It’s absolutely shocking and how any victim of sexual assault could look at this Labour government and Jess Phillips in particular, and the whole state apparatus right now, and have any degree of confidence is beyond me.”
A prison officer has been suspended while a probe takes place.
Hadush Kebatu left carrying a distinctive avocado-patterened bag. Pic: Met Police
It is understood Kebatu, who crossed the Channel in a small boat to enter the UK on 29 June, 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 7 July – just eight days after he arrived in the country on a small boat.
The migrant was found guilty of five offences and his sentencing hearing in September heard it was his “firm wish” to be deported.
Kebatu’s crime led to protesters and counter-protesters taking to the streets in Epping, and eventually outside hotels housing asylum seekers across the country.
