Nearly 100 prisoners freed by mistake in UK over seven months this year

Three prisoners who were mistakenly released are still on the run, the Justice Secretary confirmed, including one who has been free since August last year. David Lammy laid out the latest figures as the government faces intensifying scrutiny after a string of high-profile blunders in the prison system.

Lammy told MPs that 91 prisoners had been accidentally freed between April 1 and October 31 this year. “I’m clear that we must bear down on these numbers, which are symptomatic of a prison system under horrendous strain,” he said.

The inmate who slipped through the cracks in August 2024 had been serving time for a class B drug offence. Another, mistakenly released in December last year, had been jailed for failing to surrender to police. The third, who was freed in June this year, was serving a sentence for aggravated burglary.

Lammy, who is also Deputy Prime Minister, said the government plans to spend up to £10 million over six months on AI and other technology to help officers avoid dangerous errors. “We are putting in new guardrails around an archaic system, with tougher new checks, reviewing specific failings and modernising prison processes and joint working with courts, all to bear down on the increase in mistakes,” he said. “That is what victims deserve. That is what the public expects, and this government will do what it takes to protect the public.”

The comments come after two prisoners were mistakenly released from HMP Wandsworth last week. One of them, 24-year-old Algerian offender Brahim Kaddour-Cherif, was arrested in Islington after a member of the public recognised him from a Metro newspaper photo. Days earlier, William “Billy” Smith had also been wrongly let out of the same jail before later handing himself in.

The accidental releases follow the case of Hadush Kebatu, a migrant s3x offender freed in error from HMP Chelmsford in October, a mistake that caused national outrage and intense pressure on the government. Lammy previously said he was “appalled at the rate of releases in error.”

Stronger security checks and an independent investigation have now been ordered, but prison staff say the system has been struggling for far longer. Officers told Metro that such errors are more common than the public realises because prisons are “overcrowded but understaffed,” making it almost impossible to monitor all movements properly. One officer said: “It is a category B jail, there will be prisoners going in and out everyday for court dates and visits, and they are so understaffed. It is just part of a wider issue of prison funding.”