Migrant in jail release farce blasts Lammy as MPs turn up heat on 'Calamity'

JUSTICE SECRETARY UNDER FIRE OVER SCANDAL

- BY MICHAEL KNOWLES Home Affairs Editor

A MIGRANT sex offender mistakenly released from prison taunted David Lammy over the justice crisis as the Algerian was detained yesterday.

Brahim Kaddour-Cherif, 24, was held after a member of the public called the police to report a sighting.

It ended a nine-day police manhunt after he was let out from HMP Wandsworth on Wednesday last week.

He initially denied being the wanted fugitive, but as he was put in the back of a police van in Islington, North London, he goaded the Justice Secretary about criminals being mistakenly released from custody.

The 24-year-old, who was convicted of indecent exposure last year, said in broken English yesterday: “Look at the justice of the UK. They release people by mistake. After this they ‘ah ah ah. It’s not my f****** fault. They released me. They told me ‘you are released’?

Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick accused Mr Lammy of failing to come clean about the true extent of the problem.

‘The Tory said after yesterday's arrest: “That's one down - where are the other 262 prisoners accidentally released last year? And how many prisoners have been accidentally released this year?

“David Lammy is hiding an even bigger scandal.”

Sky News footage of the Algerian's arrest showed him initially denying he was “Brahim” and, when asked if he knew him, said: “Everyone knows him, hes in [the] news’

Kaddour-Cherif was mistakenly freed because a court warrant for him to be remanded in custody was sent to the wrong prison, HMP Pentonville.

It meant there was no record of the warrant at HMP Wandsworth when prison officers applied Mr Lammy’s new “toughest-ever" checks, so they released him.

It came five days after Epping sex attack migrant Hadush Kebatu was let out of HMP Chelmsford instead of being sent to an immigration detention centre to be deported.

CRISIS