A total of 91 prisoners have been mistakenly released from the United Kingdom’s prison system over a seven-month period since April this year, according to the latest government report.
This was contained in a report published by the Ministry of Justice on Tuesday, which showed the statistics of people who had been accidentally released from prison between April and October 2025.
According to the justice ministry, the erroneous releases ranged from misplaced warrants for imprisonment or remand to sentence miscalculations, or could be the result of mistakes by courts or other authorities.
One of such cases involved the high-profile jail blunder, which resulted in the release of Hadush Kebatu, an Ethiopian national, who had been jailed for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl and a woman, but was freed by mistake on October 24.
The case sparked a protest in Essex, leading to a massive manhunt before he was eventually captured. He has since been deported to Ethiopia.
Another incident was about Algerian national Brahim Kaddour-Cherif. The 24-year-old was accidentally freed from HMP Wandsworth in London on October 29, but was re-arrested last week after a police manhunt.
According to separate government data, approximately 262 inmates were mistakenly released from prison in the year to March 2025 across England and Wales, marking a 128 per cent increase from the 115 in the previous 12 months.
Responding to justice questions in the House of Commons, the UK Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Secretary, David Lammy, stated that the government must take every step to reduce the figures, noting that measures are being implemented to address the situation.
