Ministers given warning not to scapegoat prison staff for release of sex offender

prisoners being released early, in error or even late, was an “endemic problem” that needed to be fixed by Prison Service leaders.

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Hadush Kebatu was released from prison on Friday after 'human error'

“I think it’s symptomatic of the chaos that we’re seeing within the system, where the number of prisoners who were released early has gone up,” he said.

“Serious mistakes” had been made at HMP Chelmsford, which was a “very busy” reception prison, while an inspection at HMP Pentonville and unpublished findings at HMP Birmingham showed “serious anomalies” of sentence calculations, Taylor said.

“I think it’s very easy to throw an individual at Chelmsford under the bus for this, but this is a systemic problem and the Prison Service needs to take some responsibility as well for failing to fix this issue, which has got much, much worse in the last couple of years,” he said.

Fourteen days before someone’s release, a hub manager in the offender unit checks the paperwork to make sure that the correct person is being let out under the right conditions.