An immigrant who has been arrested after being mistakenly released from prison
A migrant who was mistakenly released from prison has been found in North London and taken back into custody following a major manhunt, the Metropolitan Police said.
Hadesh Kebatu was found in the Finsbury Park area at 08:30 GMT on Sunday morning, two days after being accidentally dropped from HMP Chelmsford.
Kebatu, who was convicted last month of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl and a woman in Epping while staying at the Asylum Hotel, was wrongfully dismissed instead of fired.
The police met and said that kebatu was arrested by the police and that “he will be sent back to the custody of the prison service”.
Cmd James Conway, who was tasked with finding Kebatu, said: “This has been a very active and fast-paced investigation led by the Metropolitan Police, supported by British Police and British Police (BP).
“Information from LED managers who lead the community in Finsbury Park and followed the search, found Mr Kebatu.
“I am very grateful to the community for their support following our appeal, which helped to find Mr Kebatu.”
Hadish Kebatu posed a “high risk of recidivism”, the judge said during Hensec [Essex Police]
Essex police first learned that Kebatu was accidentally released at 12:57 on Friday but Kebatu had already boarded the train in East London 16 minutes earlier.
He was captured on CCTV at a library in the Dalston area on Friday evening wearing gray prison tracksuits and carrying a white bag with pictures of avocados on it.
Kebatu’s arrest in July sparked protests outside the Bell Hotel in Epping, where he had been staying since arriving in the UK on a small boat.
In September, Chelmsford Magistrates’ Court heard Kebatu tried to kiss a 12-year-old girl on the bench and made several comments.
The next day, he met the girl and tried to take her before sex. He was also sexually abused by a woman who offered to help him collect a CV to get a job.
Kebatu gave his age as 38 when he appeared in court, but the judge said he had seen information that showed he was 41.
He pleaded not guilty to the charges against him but was found guilty of five counts last month and sentenced to 12 months in custody, including time he had already spent in prison awaiting trial. In total, he spent 108 days in jail.
Kebatu was also given an effective sexual restraining order, which prevented him from approaching or communicating with any woman, and was ordered to sign a bail bond for 10 years.
During his trial, the court heard that it was Kebatu’s “strong” desire “to be deported. Under the UK Border Act of 2007, a deportation order must be made when a foreigner is found guilty and has received a sentence of at least 12 months.
Justice Secretary David Lammy Anaking An independent investigation into Kebatu’s release, and the prison service has ordered the authorities in England and Wales to implement additional checks before prisoners are released on Monday.
A prison official has been suspended for an investigation, but a senior prison official told BBC News that the release “is due to a series of errors, possibly because staff are overworked and short on availability”.
They continued: “It’s not just the prison offices that should be blamed. That would be wrong.”
Health Secretary Wes Streeting told the BBC that there was “great relief” and that the kebatu would be expelled “.
He went on to say: “The Secretary of Justice is ordering an investigation into whether there was a dangerous person in the world who was chased off our streets.
“That work is ongoing, we will be open and clear to the public about what went wrong and what we will do about it.”
At the beginning of the prison service, he was under a lot of pressure “but even in the latter they do not explain or justify the release of people who have no business in our streets”.
Former conservative justice secretary Alex Chalk said the investigation needed to be scrutinized “so that lessons can be learned”, and highlighted the incident’s wider problems with the prison system.
He told BBC Breakfast: “The Department of Justice’s annual budget has been spent by the Department to deal with pensions in two weeks.
“My constant plea is to try to ensure that the prison service gets the resources it needs to ensure we hire and retain people with the skills and experience to ensure these problems do not happen.”
Liberal Democrat MP for Chelmsford, Marie Goldman, said Kebatu “must now be deported” and a national inquiry was being carried out.
Earlier, UK leader Nigel Farage said the incident showed that “the UK’s ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ institutions, including the police and prisons, were ‘disintegrating before our eyes’.
A report from Bustory’s Prison Just and Probation Service said 262 prisoners in England and Wales were released by mistake between April 2024 and March 2025, up from 115 in the previous 12 months.
