SEX ATTACKER MIGRANT WAS GIVEN £500 TO LEAVE BRITAIN

'Farce' as offender wrongly released from jail takes cash to avoid deportation fight

- By Michael Knowles and Christian Calgie

A MIGRANT sex offender mistakenly freed from jail was paid £500 to accept deportation to Ethiopia.

Tories have branded Hadush Kebatu's handout a "farce" and said he should have been flown out straight away without a penny. Kebatu had threatened, before he was taken from Wormwood Scrubs jail and again after arriving at Heathrow, to claim asylum and use human rights laws to avoid Tuesday night's flight, sparking fears of huge cost to the taxpayer and delays to his removal.

Kemi Badenoch said that the Government "handed £500 ... to a vile foreign sex attacker" and declared: "Hadush Kebatu should have been deported immediately, not released and sent home with pocket money.

"The Conservatives have a serious plan to leave the [European Convention on Human Rights] and deport all foreign criminals, ensuring that this sort of outrageous waste of taxpayers' money never happens again." The Tory leader added: "The whole thing is a shameful farce, which just shows Keir Starmer doesn't have the backbone to deal with our illegal immigration problem."

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: "The Government should not have needed to pay this illegal immigrant who sexually preyed on a young girl to leave. Kebatu should have been immediately and forcibly deported without payment."

Kebatu, said to be 41, was housed at The Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex, after arriving in the UK illegally on a small boat. Days later he sexually assaulted a girl of 14 and a woman.