A former asylum seeker and convicted sex offender who was released from prison in error is back in custody and now faces deportation.
The Ethiopian national Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu was jailed for 12 months in September for sexually assaulting a woman and a 14-year-old girl and made the subject of a five-year sexual harm prevention order.
He was arrested in the Finsbury Park area of north London at around 8.30am on Sunday, Scotland Yard said.
Both Keir Starmer and the justice secretary, David Lammy, said Kebatu will now be deported.
The prime minister said: “We must make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
“We have ordered an investigation to establish what went wrong.”
Lammy said: “I have already ordered the immediate strengthening of release checks and a full investigation into what went wrong.”
The Metropolitan police commander James Conway, who oversaw the operation to find Kebatu, said: “This has been a diligent and fast-paced investigation led by specialist officers from the Metropolitan police, supported by Essex police and the British Transport Police.
“Information from the public led officers to Finsbury Park and, following a search, they located Mr Kebatu. He was detained by police but will be returned to the custody of the Prison Service.
“I am extremely grateful to the public for their support following our appeal, which assisted in locating Mr Kebatu.”
The health secretary, Wes Streeting said it was a relief Kebatu was back in custody. Speaking to GB News, he said: “I am appalled that this man was released, he should never have been on our streets, we will get to the bottom of what went wrong and we will make sure there is accountability and transparency with the public.”
The shadow home secretary, Chris Philp, told GB News that Kebatu should now be “immediately deported”.
He said: “It’s good that he has been finally caught, but I remain shocked that this inept Labour government let him out in the first place.
“They should never have allowed his release and I think David Lammy and Shabana Mahmood have questions to answer, because they have presided over this system.
He added: “Just eight days after illegally crossing the Channel, [Kebatu] sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl in Essex, and we don’t want people in this country who are going to attack women and girls in that way, so he should be immediately deported.”
Zia Yusuf, the head of policy for Reform UK, said: “I said yesterday on social media that Britain’s descent into a Monty Python sketch was almost complete. This is a man who eyewitnesses said was actively trying to go back into prison after being accidentally let go. It’s absolutely shocking, and how any victim of sexual assault can look at this Labour government, and [the safeguarding minister] Jess Phillips in particular, and the whole state apparatus right now, and have any degree of confidence is beyond me.”
Kebatu, who was released wearing a prison-issue grey tracksuit and holding a plastic bag containing his possessions, made several train journeys across London after being freed on Friday, according to the Met.
He took a train from Chelmsford to Stratford, east London, on the day he was released and was later spotted in Dalston carrying a white bag with pictures of avocados on it, before his arrest on Sunday morning.
The 41-year-old was meant to be sent to an immigration detention centre to be deported but was released from HMP Chelmsford in Essex by mistake, it has emerged.
A delivery driver described seeing Kebatu return to HMP Chelmsford in a “very confused” state “four or five times”, only to be turned away by prison staff and directed to the railway station.
The driver, named only as Sim, told Sky News that he saw Kebatu come out of the prison saying: “Where am I going? What am I doing?” and hanging around for about an hour and a half as he tried to find out where he should be going.
He said Kebatu knew he should be deported but the prison staff were “basically sending him away” and saying to him: “Go, you’ve been released, you go.”
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The driver said: “He kept scratching his head and saying: ‘Where do I go, where do I go?’ The fourth or fifth time [he went into the reception], he was starting to get upset, he was getting stressed. I’m not sticking up for the guy, but in my eyes, he was trying to do the right thing.
“He knew he was getting deported, but he didn’t know where he was going or how he should get there.”
Kebatu appeared to have been spotted later in Chelmsford town centre asking for assistance before getting on a train to London.
Essex police confirmed on Saturday that Kebatu was seen catching a train at Chelmsford railway station at 12.41pm on Friday. The Met confirmed he was seen getting off the train in Stratford in east London at about 1.10pm.
As a result, the Met was handed responsibility for the investigation on Saturday morning, the force said.
Prison Service sources said the release from HMP Chelmsford was caused by human error. It is understood the prison officer who authorised the release has been removed from duties while an urgent investigation takes place.
According to the Telegraph, Kebatu was wrongly categorised as a prisoner due to be released on licence and handed a £76 discharge grant.
One prison source described the incident as a “disaster waiting to happen” because of the high volume of releases being processed by inexperienced staff, and dozens of prisoners serving different tariffs being released at the same time.
Aaron Stowe, the president of the Criminal Justice Workers Union (CJWU), called Kebatu’s mistaken release “a profound failure of duty”.
He said: “The release of Hadush Kebatu is a betrayal of the victims, the community and the principles of justice. We demand a full investigation and immediate reforms to ensure this never happens again.”
Mike Rolfe, the CJWU’s general secretary, added: “The justice system is stretched to breaking point, the public’s confidence is collapsing, and those tasked with enforcing the law are left to pick up the pieces of political cowardice.”
The father of Kebatu’s teenage victim told Sky News: “The justice system has let us down.”
Kebatu was found guilty of five offences last month after attempting to kiss a 14-year-old girl twice, before sexually assaulting her, and sexually assaulting a woman and trying to kiss her.
He committed the offences just days after arriving in the UK on a small boat and taking up residence at the Bell hotel in Epping. His case triggered protests outside the hotel, which far-right activists sought to exploit, leading to assaults on police officers and 32 arrests.
At his trial, the district judge, Christopher Williams, said Kebatu posed a “significant risk of reoffending”, was “manipulative” and had acted “ignorantly and repulsively” towards the woman he had assaulted. He was sentenced to 12 months in prison and had served just 31 days when he was released.
