Yesterday His Majesty’s Prison Service released a sex offender by mistake. That would be bad enough on its own, but this particular sex offender was Hadush Kebatu, the Ethiopian migrant whose assault on a 14-year-old girl sparked weeks of protests in Epping. Kebatu was only sentenced last month, receiving a 12-month sentence for two sexual assaults which he committed just eight days after arriving in the UK.

Kebatu had been held at HMP Chelmsford, and was due to be handed over to a Home Office operated immigration removal centre before his deportation from the country. Instead of doing this, the prison released him this morning.

According to the Prison Service, they ‘are urgently working with police to return an offender to custody following a release in error at HMP Chelmsford’. They ha

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