Met police take over manhunt for Kebatu
The Metropolitan police has taken over a manhunt for convicted sex offender Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu, as there is a “high level of confidence” that the asylum seeker is in the London area.
Kebatu, who was released in error from HMP Chelmsford on Friday, boarded a train for London and got off at Stratford station, the force said.
As a result, the manhunt was transferred from Essex police to the Met shortly after 11.30am on Saturday.
Key events
Closing Summary
The Metropolitan police took over a manhunt for convicted sex offender Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu on Saturday, as there was a “high level of confidence” that the asylum seeker was in the London area.
Kebatu, who was released in error from HMP Chelmsford on Friday, boarded a train for London and got off at Stratford station, the force said. As a result, the manhunt was transferred from Essex police to the Met shortly after 11.30am on Saturday.
Kebatu was found guilty of five offences last month after attempting to kiss a 14-year-old girl twice, before sexually assaulting her, and sexually assaulting a woman and trying to kiss her too.
He committed the offences just days after arriving in the UK on a small boat and taking up residence at the Bell hotel in Epping. His case triggered protests outside the hotel, which far-right activists sought to exploit, leading to assaults on police officers and 32 arrests.
At his trial, the district judge Christopher Williams said Kebatu posed a “significant risk of reoffending” and sentenced him to 12 months in prison.
In other developments:
Cmdr James Conway, of the Metropolitan police, said finding Hadush Kebatu was a “top priority” for the force. Conway said: “We’ve confirmed that Kebatu got off the London-bound train at Stratford station. We are examining CCTV from that area and further afield, including on the transport network, to establish information about his subsequent movements.
We will provide further updates when we can, but I hope the press and the public will understand why it would be unhelpful to the effectiveness of the manhunt if we were to provide a detailed running commentary.”A delivery driver called Sim, who spoke to Hadush Kebatu at Chelmsford prison told Sky News the “confused” offender was guided to the railway station by prison staff. Sim said Kebatu was outside the prison for “an hour and a half” before being sent away by prison staff. He told Sky News that Kebatu must have been outside the prison for roughly “an hour and a half,” before he finally left, adding, “They [the officers] were basically sending him away, saying, ‘Go, you’ve been released, you go.’ Sim described Kebatu as being “very confused,” saying, “He kept scratching his head and saying, ‘Where do I go, where do I go?’
“The fourth or fifth time [he went into the reception] he was starting to get upset, he was getting stressed. I’m not sticking up for the guy, but in my eyes, he was trying to do the right thing. He knew he was getting deported, but he didn’t know where he was going or how he should get there.” He added that the officers had no interest in helping him, saying, “You’re released, you’re released”.Kebatu was wrongly categorised as a prisoner due to be released on licence and handed a £76 discharge grant, the Telegraph reported on Saturday. Once at the station, a one mile walk from the prison, Kebatu bought a ticket to London at a cost of £20.90.
Councillor Chris Whitbread, Leader of Epping Forest District Council said on Saturday that he was “shocked and appalled” by the mistaken release. He said: “Frankly, I am at a loss to understand how such a grave error could occur.”
The Liberal Democrat MP Marie Goldman said on Saturday: “My mind has blown. How this could possibly happen?”
Stephen Robinson, the Liberal Democrat leader of Chelmsford city council, said Kebatu must be located and deported “as soon as possible”. “This is outrageous,” he told BBC Breakfast on Saturday.
MP Neil Hudson told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “This sounds like an operational error, but the buck has to stop somewhere, and it has to stop at the top, at the Justice Secretary, the home secretary and the prime minister.
On Friday, Sir Keir Starmer called the accidental release of Hadush Kebatu “totally unacceptable”, adding: “I am appalled that it has happened and it’s being investigated … The police are working urgently to track him down, and my Government is supporting them … This man must be caught and deported for his crimes.”
David Lammy said he was “livid on behalf of the public” and added that he had launched an investigation.
A former detective superintendent with the Metropolitan police told BBC News that accidental releases were “quite common”.
Prison Service sources said the release was down to human error. It is understood the prison officer who authorised the release has been removed from duties while an urgent investigation takes place. But one prison source described it as a “disaster waiting to happen” because of the high volume of releases being processed by inexperienced staff, with dozens of prisoners serving different tariffs being released at the same time.
And a senior prison staffer told the BBC: “This is down to a series of mistakes probably because staff are overworked and in short supply. It’s not just one prison officer who’s to blame. That would be unfair”.In the 12 months leading up to March this year, 262 prisoners were released in error in England and Wales, the majority of which were releases in error occurring from prison establishments, according to the Prison Service’s annual digest. “This is a 128% increase from 115 the previous year, and the highest in the time series,” the report said.
A former detective superintendent with the Metropolitan police told BBC News that accidental releases were “quite common”.
“Unfortunately, people will be surprised to know that actually this is quite common,” said Shabnam Chaudhri, talking about the accidental release of Hadush Kebatu.
There are “some real complexities” around documents linked to prisoner release, she said. “The mountain of paperwork that ends up being dealt with is quite staggering really.”
“This isn’t about the individual that they’ve actually now taken off duties,” she continues, referring to the news that a prison officer has been suspended over this incident.
Chaudhri thinks the real problem is “the systems and processes and policies that are just clearly not working very well”.
In the 12 months leading up to March this year, 262 prisoners were released in error in England and Wales, according to the Prison Service’s annual digest.
“This is a 128% increase from 115 the previous year, and the highest in the time series,” the report said.
“Of the 262 releases in error, 233 of these releases in error occurred from prison establishments, while 29 were released in error at the courts.”
A report by HM Inspectorate of Prisons after an inspection in January and February 2024 said HMP Chelmsford faced “considerable pressures” because of “national capacity issues” while suffering staff shortfalls in reception and the pre-release team.
It said: “The remand and unsentenced population had risen to almost 70% and the prison was now managing more admissions, transfers and immediate releases without additional resource.”
MP Neil Hudson told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “This sounds like an operational error, but the buck has to stop somewhere, and it has to stop at the top, at the Justice Secretary, the home secretary and the prime minister.
“They have said that they are livid and appalled. Well, quite right, they should be livid and appalled. But that’s not good enough, and the Labour Government needs to get a grip of this issue.”
Witness: Kebatu was outside prison for ‘an hour and a half’ before prison staff sent him away, Sky News reports
Sim, the delivery driver who spoke to Hadush Kebatu at Chelmsford prison told Sky News that Kebatu must have been outside the prison for roughly “an hour and a half,” before he finally left, adding, “They [the officers] were basically sending him away, saying, ‘Go, you’ve been released, you go.’
Sim describes Kebatu as being “very confused,” saying, “He kept scratching his head and saying, ‘Where do I go, where do I go?’
The fourth or fifth time [he went into the reception] he was starting to get upset, he was getting stressed. I’m not sticking up for the guy, but in my eyes, he was trying to do the right thing. He knew he was getting deported, but he didn’t know where he was going or how he should get there.
He added that the officers had no interest in helping him, saying, “You’re released, you’re released”.
Describing his feelings about the debacle Sim told Sky News:
It’s scary how this has all unfolded, and how easily he’s been able to get out and then be around the public.
He’s obviously not a secure man. He shouldn’t have been released and the fact there’s so many officers there – how come no one’s clocked it sooner?”
He went on: “Someone here has messed up … I know someone has been taken off duty … But to me there’s got to be more people that allowed this to happen, not just one person …”
Kebatu handed £76 discharge grant on release, the Telegraph reports
Kebatu was freed by mistake at HMP Chelmsford on Friday morning instead of being sent to an immigration detention centre.
He was wrongly categorised as a prisoner due to be released on licence and handed a £76 discharge grant, the Telegraph reported on Saturday.
Once at the station, a one mile walk from the prison, Kebatu bought a ticket to London at a cost of £20.90.
A Greater Anglia rail worker told The Telegraph: “He got a ticket and then went straight through. We don’t think he did it on his phone. You can’t use your card at this station either. It’s not London. So he must have got a ticket and paid like anyone else.
“My colleague who was here has given a statement to British Transport Police about what happened. They swarmed the place after. They spoke to people who were here.”
The accidental release of the asylum seeker was a “mind-blowing” blunder, says the MP for Chelmsford.
The Liberal Democrat MP Marie Goldman said on Saturday: “My mind has blown. How this could possibly happen?”
She added: “It is obvious something has gone terribly, terribly wrong and we really need to understand what went wrong.
“Crucially, we need to understand how to fix it.”
Goldman also told the PA news agency she had been frustrated by a lack of communication from HMP Chelmsford’s governor, Mark Howard, and said she was “struggling” not to call for him to resign.
Stephen Robinson, the Liberal Democrat leader of Chelmsford city council, said Kebatu must be located and deported “as soon as possible”.
“This is outrageous,” he told BBC Breakfast.
“Chelmsford prison is used to handling people who are coming and going because it’s mainly a remand centre, and so they should be used to dealing with this.”
Witness: Kebatu was ‘confused’ and directed to train station by prison staff, Sky News reports
A delivery driver called Sim, who spoke to Hadush Kebatu at Chelmsford prison has told Sky News the “confused” offender was guided to the railway station by prison staff.
Sim was delivering equipment to the prison on Friday when Kebatu was released in error instead of being handed over to immigration officials for deportation.
The lorry driver explained to Sky News that Kebatu approached him and seemed to have no idea of where he was supposed to go.
He came out of the airlock, and kept saying to the officers there, ‘Where am I going? What am I doing? I don’t know where I’m going and what I’m doing.’
He was holding a pack of paperwork in his arms, and his bag of bits …
He knew he’d been deported. He came over to me and said, ‘I need you to help me.’
Sim, who still has the vehicle pass from the prison, said that after a while a member of staff directed the offender to Chelmsford station to catch a train to London, and “told him that he had to get on a train”.
Police confirmed Kebatu was seen catching a train at Chelmsford railway station at 12.41pm on Friday.
On Friday, Sir Keir Starmer called the accidental release of Hadush Kebatu “totally unacceptable”, adding:
I am appalled that it has happened and it’s being investigated.
The police are working urgently to track him down, and my Government is supporting them … This man must be caught and deported for his crimes.
David Lammy said he was “livid on behalf of the public” and added that he had launched an investigation.
Lammy also said on Friday that there was “no excuse” for the mistaken release, but that Labour had inherited “a collapsing prison system”.
He said:
Let us be clear, we inherited a collapsing prison system in which the last government was releasing people early and which our prisons were overflowing.
And, indeed, we have a sentencing bill in parliament seeking to address that issue, and we have stabilised the system.
But that can be no excuse for wrongly releasing an individual, a dangerous individual, into the community.
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said Kebatu’s release was “staggering incompetence” and called for a public inquiry.
Chelmsford’s Liberal Democrat MP Marie Goldman told the PA news agency she had been frustrated by a lack of communication from HMP Chelmsford’s governor, Mark Howard, and said she was “struggling” not to call for him to resign.
Kebatu’s mistaken release – what we know
At this moment, there is very little we know about how Hadush Kebatu came to be mistakenly released.
Prison Service sources said the release was down to human error.
It is understood the prison officer who authorised the release has been removed from duties while an urgent investigation takes place.
One prison source described it as a “disaster waiting to happen” because of the high volume of releases being processed by inexperienced staff, with dozens of prisoners serving different tariffs being released at the same time.
A senior prison staffer told the BBC: “This is down to a series of mistakes probably because staff are overworked and in short supply. It’s not just one prison officer who’s to blame. That would be unfair”.
Recent law changes mean that foreign criminals such as Kebatu can be removed from England and Wales after serving a shorter sentence than domestic criminals. Kebatu was automatically eligible for immediate removal as soon as he was sentenced because of the time he had already spent on remand.
The number of prisoners released in error more than doubled in the year to March 2025, Government data has shown.
Council Leader ‘shocked and appalled’ by mistaken release
Councillor Chris Whitbread, Leader of Epping Forest District Council has responded to the extraordinary news after the mistaken release of Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu.
Councillor Whitbread said in a statement:
I am shocked and appalled by the mistaken release of Hadush Kebatu. Frankly, I am at a loss to understand how such a grave error could occur.
My thoughts are with the victim and her family at this deeply distressing time. They have shown immense courage, and they deserve our full support and protection.
This is a serious failure of the justice system, and people will rightly be outraged. It is completely unacceptable. The public has a right to expect that those convicted of serious crimes remain securely in custody. Public safety must never be compromised.
I sincerely hope Kebatu is located and returned to prison without delay. There must also be a full and transparent investigation into how this happened, and what safeguards will be put in place to ensure it never happens again.”
Timeline of events so far
Friday, 12:57 – The search for Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu began after Essex police were informed by the Prison Service that there had been “an error”.
Friday, 12:41 – The Greater Anglia London-bound train that Kebatu had boarded left Chelmsford and then called at Shenfield, according to train line data.
Friday, 13:10 – The service stopped at Stratford where the Met Police say Kebatu disembarked.
A police statement said that, “Officers worked throughout the night to track his movements, including scouring hours of CCTV footage, and this work continues today.
“It is not lost on us that this situation is concerning to people, and we are committed to locating and arresting him as quickly as possible,” it added.
Saturday, 11:30 – Responsibility for the manhunt was transferred from Essex police to the Metropolitan police.
Who is Hadush Kebatu?
Donna Ferguson
A former asylum seeker who was released from prison in error after sexually assaulting a woman and a 14-year-old girl has been spotted “in the London area” after officers worked through the night to track his movements, Essex police said.
The Ethiopian national Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu was jailed for 12 months in September for sexual assault and made the subject of a five-year sexual harm prevention order.
The 41-year-old was meant to be sent to an immigration detention centre to be deported but was freed by mistake, it has emerged.
Kebatu was found guilty of five offences last month after attempting to kiss a 14-year-old girl twice, before sexually assaulting her, and sexually assaulting a woman and trying to kiss her too.
He committed the offences just days after arriving in the UK on a small boat and taking up residence at the Bell hotel in Epping. His case triggered protests outside the hotel, which far-right activists sought to exploit, leading to assaults on police officers and 32 arrests.
At his trial, the district judge Christopher Williams said Kebatu posed a “significant risk of reoffending” and sentenced him to 12 months in prison.
The number of prisoners released in error more than doubled in the year to March 2025, Government data shows.
A report by His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) said 262 prisoners were released in error from April 2024 to March 2025, up from 115 in the year to March 2024.
HMPPS said in the report that releases in error “remain infrequent” and believes the rise is linked to changes in the law, and the early release scheme which Labour introduced in September 2024.
Finding Kebatu is a top priority, Met commander says
Cmdr James Conway, of the Metropolitan police, said finding Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu is a “top priority” for the force.
The manhunt is being led by an experienced senior investigating officer. He has teams from the Specialist Crime Command with expertise in tracking down wanted people at his disposal, as well as other resources from across the Met.
We’ve confirmed that Kebatu got off the London-bound train at Stratford station.
We are examining CCTV from that area and further afield, including on the transport network, to establish information about his subsequent movements.
We will provide further updates when we can, but I hope the press and the public will understand why it would be unhelpful to the effectiveness of the manhunt if we were to provide a detailed running commentary.
Anyone who sees Kebatu, or has information about his whereabouts, should call 999 immediately.
Met police take over manhunt for Kebatu
The Metropolitan police has taken over a manhunt for convicted sex offender Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu, as there is a “high level of confidence” that the asylum seeker is in the London area.
Kebatu, who was released in error from HMP Chelmsford on Friday, boarded a train for London and got off at Stratford station, the force said.
As a result, the manhunt was transferred from Essex police to the Met shortly after 11.30am on Saturday.
