Hadush Kebatu Was Set Free From HMP Chelmsford By Mistake

The government was forced to issue a frantic plea to the public to help them hunt down a migrant sex offender who was accidentally freed from prison. The man has now been located.

Hadush Kebatu was set free from HMP Chelmsford by mistake on Friday, just four weeks after being convicted for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl and a woman in Epping, Essex, while being accommodated at an asylum seeker hotel.

The 38-year-old Ethiopian, whose crimes sparked demonstrations outside The Bell Hotel in Epping and around the country, was awaiting transfer to an immigration detention centre ahead of his planned deportation, but bumbling prison staff released him instead.

To further embarrassment, it emerged that prison staff directed him away from the prison towards the train station, and that Kebatu even tried to return to the prison, but was turned away.

The convicted sex offender was filmed in Chelmsford talking to members of the public before boarding a 12.41 pm train to London Liverpool Street.

The Metropolitan Police released CCTV footage of Kebatu in the Dalston area of Hackney just before 8 pm. He was also picked up on CCTV at a library in Dalston Square two hours earlier. He was still wearing his prison-issue grey tracksuit while clutching his white tote bag with avocados on it.

This man was behind bars because he had committed several serious sex crimes, and he was not meant to be in this country. Instead of being released, he should have been taken to a deportation centre. Many blunders have been made here, and whoever is responsible for this needs to be sacked immediately.

It has now emerged that the prison officers told Kebatu that he had to make his own way to the removal centre on his own.

A delivery driver told Sky News: ‘I heard one of the officers saying, ‘This is how you get to the station, you go down here…’ [he] directed him to the station and said he had to get on a train to get to this place… This conversation was at the front of the prison.’

In what caused further disbelief is that Kebatu spent more than 90 minutes hanging around outside the prison because he just didn’t know where to go or what to do.

The driver, who was delivering equipment to the prison, said: ‘[The officers] were basically sending him away, saying, ‘Go, you’ve been released, you go’.

Labour’s handling of the immigration situation is now under scrutiny due to the fiasco.

It comes amid a backlash against measures to tackle illegal migration after a man who was deported under the ‘one in, one out’ scheme with France reappeared on UK shores, having crossed the Channel again in a small boat.

Tory MP for Epping Forest, Neil Hudson, called Kebatu’s release a ‘catastrophic mistake’ which had ‘deeply distressed, upset and angered’ the whole community, adding that ‘accountability must go right to the top’.

Even after being set free, Kebatu kept going ‘back and forth’ into the prison reception area seeking help and showing staff a wad of paperwork about his case, according to the driver.

‘I’m not sticking up for the guy, but in my eyes he wanted to do the right thing and go to the right place,’ he said.

‘He knew he was getting deported, but he didn’t know where to go or how he should get there. He kept scratching his head and saying, ‘Where do I go, where do I go?’

He added that the officers had no interest in helping him, saying, ‘You’re released, you’re released’.

Kebatu was jailed for a year last month after assaulting his 14-year-old victim. During his trial, Chelmsford Magistrates’ Court heard that he acted ‘ignorantly and repulsively’. 

The migrant became aroused as he put his hand on the girl’s thighs and stroked her hair despite knowing ‘full well she was only 14’. He said he wanted to have a baby with her and asked her back to The Bell Hotel, where he was living.

Then, when a woman tried to stop him, Kebatu put his hand on her leg and complimented her appearance before attempting to kiss her.

The asylum seeker gave his age as 38 during a court appearance, but a judge said he had witnessed information revealing he was 41. 

Met Police Commander James Conway advised Kebatu to give himself up, saying: ‘We want to locate you in a safe and controlled way. You had already indicated a desire to return to Ethiopia when speaking to immigration staff. The best outcome for you is to make contact directly with us.’

He said the asylum seeker had taken ‘a number of journeys’ across London since his release on Friday and had ‘access to funds’.

It’s obvious that total idiots are in charge of our country, but then if they weren’t permitted into the UK in the first place, we wouldn’t have to have our police force running about like headless chickens trying to locate this man.

Our government are so inept that he will likely end up back in the same prison he came from, and no one would have noticed!

Was this man genuinely let out of prison by error, or was it done on purpose? You just have to ask yourself the question.

How Labour have betrayed us and put our well-being and safety at risk is indeed criminal and beggars belief.

If it weren’t so tragic and dangerous, it would be laughable. The first obligation of our government is to keep people safe. Can anyone truthfully say Labour has done this since taking power?