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prison officer‘ The union has questioned why an employee was “unjustly” suspended after sexually assaulting a teenage girl seeking asylum. freed from error,
and Chief Inspector of prisons He said mistakes regarding prisoner releases were happening “all the time” and were a symptom of chaos in the system.
Union POA chairman Mark Fairhurst said the employee, a custodial manager, was the only person under suspension, when at least two more senior staff members were involved in freeing Haddush Kebatu from HMP Chelmsford.
The Ethiopian national was jailed for 12 months in September on sexual assault charges and was wrongly released on Friday instead of being sent to an immigration detention centre, a huge mistake. widespread condemnation,
He was arrested in Finsbury Park, London on Sunday after a two-day search.
Mr. Fairhurst told Guardian: “One of our members has been unfairly suspended as he is not the only member involved in this entire process. Our thoughts are with him and we will fully support him.”
Downing Street has insisted that Kebatu be deported.
The POA said the suspended prison employee was responsible for checking documents to ensure the release of the correct prisoner, but the paperwork was handled by other managers.
Meanwhile, Chief Inspector of Prisons Charlie Taylor said prisoners being released early, by mistake or late is now an “endemic problem” that needs to be fixed.
He said prison service leaders need to be accountable for ensuring staff are properly trained and offender-management units, which release prisoners, have enough officers.
According to government figures published in July, 262 prisoners were released by mistake by March 2025 – an increase of 128 per cent compared to the previous 12 months, during which 115 were released by mistake.
housing secretary steve reed called for criminal justice system To be “rebuilt from the bottom up”.
“This man had no right to be in the country in the first place, let alone commit the crimes he committed,” he said.
Blaming the defeat on the previous Tory government, Mr Reid said: “We know this because when we were elected, prisons Were full. There was no place to keep those who were given custodial sentences in the courts.
“A third of the professional staff in the criminal justice system have been laid off under the previous government. We have to rebuild it from the bottom up.”
The problem of more prisoners than capacity in Britain’s prisons is deepening. Independent Revealed this month The growing backlog of maintenance is now approaching £2 billion, set to double between 2020 and 2024.
A quarter of prisoners in England and Wales are held in prisons that are not fireproof, while hundreds of prisoners are held in cells without toilets.
Kebatu, who lives at the Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex, was convicted in September of making inappropriate comments to a 14-year-old girl before he tried to kiss her – just eight days after arriving in the country on a small boat.
He was found guilty of five offenses after a three-day trial at Chelmsford and Colchester magistrates’ courts, and said during his sentencing hearing that it was his “firm wish” that he be deported.
In court, he gave his date of birth as December 1986, making him 38 years old, however Essex Police records gave it as December 1983, making him 41 years old.
Kebatu’s crime sparked street protests and counter-demonstrations in Epping. The victim’s father said he hoped the sex offender would be deported immediately.
The Justice Ministry referred the inquiry to a statement Justice Secretary David Lammy was due to make in the Commons later on Monday.