Wandsworth manhunt latest: Search on for two prisoners freed by mistake - and reason for latest error revealed

Police have released the moment Brahim Kaddour-Cherif, the 24-year-old foreign offender who was released from HMP Wandsworth by mistake, was initially arrested.

Paste BN understands he came into the country in 2019 on a visit visa but overstayed and an immigration case was started against him.

Kaddour-Cherif is a registered sex offender and was convicted in November 2024 of indecent exposure linked to an incident in March of the same year.

As we've said, David Lammy was asked several times earlier today, in Deputy Prime Minister's questions, about any possible further releases of asylum-seeking offenders.

Lammy refused to say anything even though he knew about the issue - having been briefed overnight.

After the first question, Lammy said:

"Let me just remind him that he was a justice minister that allowed our prisons to get to this state in the first place and it's now for us to fix the mess that we've got into. It's important that Dame Lynne Owens can now continue her work and understand what is happening. He knows that early releases begun under their watch in 2021."

James Cartlidge then repeated his question. 

In response, Lammy told him to "get a grip".

"In 25 years in this House, I have not witnessed a more shameful spectacle frankly than what the party opposite left in our justice system," he added.

He then said:

"Their criminal negligence, on his watch as a former justice minister, they left our prisons on the brink of collapse entirely, threatening to allow offenders to run wild on our streets. He knows that. Rape victims waiting years for their day in court. He knows that. Neighbourhood policing decimated, leaving our people feeling unsafe in their communities, and they haven't learned a thing.

"We are tackling knife crime, that's why it's falling, 13,000 more bobbies we are putting on the streets, kicking out 5,000 foreign criminal offenders. I've got to say, he should do better."

Following Deputy Prime Minister's Questions, sources said Lammy believed it would have been irresponsible to talk about the mistaken release of a second foreign prisoner while details were still emerging.

See our 13.46 post for his latest statement.

We're hearing from the Ministry of Justice after David Lammy was repeatedly quizzed on the first prisoner's mistaken release in the Commons earlier.

A spokesperson said Lammy hadn't been "accurately informed of key details" when he was asked about the case.

"The crisis in the prison system this government inherited is such that basic information about individual cases can take unacceptably long to reach ministers," the spokesperson said.

"On entering the House, facts were still emerging about the case and the deputy prime minister had not been accurately informed of key details including the offender's immigration status."

The spokesperson added that there were no media stories in the public domain and it remains subject to a live police investigation.

"The deputy prime minister was asked questions about the release of an asylum seeker. As was confirmed after PMQs by the Home Office, the individual was not an asylum seeker," the spokesperson said.

"The deputy prime minister waited until after PMQs and further facts had emerged before making a statement."

Watch: Lammy refuses to say if more prisoners mistakenly released

By Jon Craig, chief political correspondent

The charitable view of the latest prison release blunder that has plunged the government into another political crisis is that it's extremely bad luck rather than an act of incompetence by ministers. 

But the more we learn about the shocking details of what happened and what looks like a cynical attempt at a cover-up by the hapless David Lammy, the more the blame can be laid at the government's door.

Critics of the justice secretary and deputy prime minister, standing in for Sir Keir Starmer at PMQs, claim this sorry episode reveals his pomposity, inability to think on his feet and a tendency to blame others for a fiasco.

And it's not as if the accidental prison releases that have shocked the nation and outraged public opinion in recent weeks are the only fiascos on the government's watch. For example...

The asylum seeker deported on the government's one in, one out deal with France - who then returned to the UK on a small boat across the Channel - was another case of a policy that critics claim isn't working.

The furore over the tax rises expected in Rachel Reeves' budget can also be attributed to what now looks like a strategic error in promising no rises in income tax, VAT or national insurance in Labour's election manifesto.

The chair of the Justice Committee has said the system is "at breaking point".

Labour MP Andy Slaughter said reports of the two prisoners being released in error are "extremely concerning", especially following the high-profile release of Hadush Kebatu from HMP Chelmsford last month.

"Evidence taken by the Justice Committee has laid bare a crisis-hit prison system, starved of investment over many years which is facing multi-faceted pressures, including overcrowding and understaffing within a decaying prison estate characterised by chaos and instability," he said.

"The Committee visited HMP Wandsworth as part of its 'tackling drugs in prisons' inquiry and found an institution with multiple failings despite the best efforts of its staff." 

The report, which was published just days ago, warned the use of illicit drugs and the trade in them across prisons has reached "endemic" levels.

"While the day to day running of prison security and public safety are paramount, the current spate of releases in error will be repeated until the underlying failures are addressed," he added.

Two manhunts are under way after two prisoners were mistakenly released from HMP Wandsworth in south London, as we've been reporting.

It's a big and confusing story - that's extremely embarrassing for the government, and prison officials, coming not long after a convicted sex offender asylum seeker was released in error, when he should have been deported last month (he was, in the end, returned to Ethiopia - as we covered on Paste BN).

But what do we know about the two latest gaffes?

Our national correspondent Tom Parmenter explains...

 By Lydia Morrish, OSINT producer 

A Facebook profile belonging to Brahim Kaddour-Cherif offers a glimpse of his life in London before he was imprisoned.  

His feed shows him posing for photos around east London, including on Shoreditch High Street, along the Thames, in Westminster and riding the London Underground between July 2020 and September 2022. 

In several photos shared publicly in 2022, Kaddour-Cherif wears a large gold-coloured watch, sportswear and a variety of hats. 

Another shows him posing in the street beside a BMW. 

One image, shared by a Facebook friend of his, shows him wearing a motorcycle helmet outside a 'ghost kitchen' in Bethnal Green.

He hasn't posted on the profile since October 2022. 

The Conservative shadow home secretary says David Lammy should have given an "honest answer" about whether any more foreign offenders had been released from jail in error.

Speaking to Politics Hub's Darren McCaffery, Chris Philp says Lammy is wrong to claim the police did not want him to release the information.

The Tory also said it's "pathetic" that the Labour government is trying to blame the previous Conservative governments for the poor state of prisons.

Our presenter points out that the Tories cut prison budgets and cut staff, which likely had consequences.

But Philp replies: "Look, we're a year and a half now into this Labour government. This is on their watch. They didn't start in government last week or last month."

Like the Lib Dems (see 19.50 post), he calls for Lammy to return to face MPs tomorrow, saying he should "apologise and get himself back to Parliament".

The Lib Dems have accused the government of "seemingly trying to bury the news" about two prisoners being wrongly released from the same prison.

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Max Wilkinson said parliamentary recess should be cancelled, to allow MPs to discuss the prisons "fiasco" tomorrow.

"After this appalling series of failures, recess must be cancelled so David Lammy can address Parliament tomorrow," Wilkinson said.

"Two prisoners have been wrongly released from the same jail in a single week — and the Government is seemingly trying to bury the news before recess.

"This is unacceptable.

"Ministers must face MPs and be held to account for this prison gates fiasco."

The House of Commons is due to go into a short recess when it adjourns tonight and will return on Tuesday, November 11.

David Lammy, the deputy prime minister and justice secretary, has been under fire today for seemingly not coming totally clean with MPs about Wandsworth prison losing two prisoners by mistake.

Lammy and the government say they had to wait until police released the information, before making it public.

But Richard Tice, deputy leader of Reform UK, has questioned whether Lammy "deliberately" kept information from MPs when he appeared at deputy Prime Minister's Questions this afternoon.

Tice said: The question is, if David Lammy knew before he went into the House of Commons that information, then did he deliberately withhold that from the House of Commons?

"Which – I'll be gentle about it – is at the very least poor form."

Tice has been speaking at a Bloomberg event - which we have been streaming live. Catch up on our YouTube, if you'd like to: