Wrongly freed Algerian sex offender slams UK justice as he is arrested

Algerian sex offender Brahim Kaddour-Cherif has been re-arrested after being accidentally released from HMP Wandsworth nine days ago.

The 24-year-old shouted 'look at the justice of the UK... it's not my f*****g fault, they released me' as he was handcuffed on a busy street in Finsbury Park, north London. 

Kaddour-Cherif had been serving a sentence for trespass with intent to steal, but had a previous conviction for indecent exposure.

He was released on October 29, but the Prison Service only told police about the error six days later, prompting a manhunt. It is not clear what caused the delay.

The Met found Kaddour-Cherif on Blackstock Road after he was spotted by a member of the public just before 11.30am. 

Footage of his arrest, captured by Sky News, showed him initially standing by a police van before officers arrested him, as a small group of people gathered on the pavement to watch - with some filming the scene on their phones.

Wearing a grey hoodie, black beanie and black backpack, he denied that he was 'Brahim' and, when asked if he knew him, said: 'Everyone knows him he's in [the] news.'

Police began to handcuff his hands in front of him, telling him: 'You're going to be placed under arrest on suspicion of being wanted... because you look identical to the person released from custody.'

Officers brought him to the back of the van and held up an image of Kaddour-Cherif next to his face before un-cuffing and re-cuffing his hands behind his back. They then searched his backpack and found a laptop, umbrella and wallet.

Before Kaddour-Cherif was put in the back of the van, he turned to those gathered and said: 'Look at the justice of the UK they release people by mistake after this they 'ah ah ah', it's not my f****** fault.'

When a journalist asked: 'Why didn't you hand yourself in?', he appeared to look at the police around him and said: 'Do your job.'

Another prisoner, Billy Smith, 35, was also accidentally freed from Wandsworth on Monday before handing himself back in. 

While Kaddour-Cherif's arrest will come as a relief to the government, it will do little to dampen the backlash against David Lammy, who has been branded 'cowardly' and 'incompetent' for his handling of the issue. 

After confirming the Algerian had been rearrested, Mr Lammy said: 'We inherited a prison system in crisis and I'm appalled at the rate of releases in error this is causing. I'm determined to grip this problem, but there is a mountain to climb which cannot be done overnight.'

The Met said in a statement: 'At 11.23am on Friday, 7 November, a call was received from a member of the public reporting a sighting of a man they believed to be Brahim Kaddour-Cherif in the vicinity of Capital City College on Blackstock Road in Islington.

'Officers responded immediately and at 11.30am detained a man matching Cherif's description. His identity was confirmed and he was arrested for being unlawfully at large.

'He was also arrested on suspicion of assaulting an emergency worker in relation to a previous unrelated incident. He has been taken into police custody. The Prison Service has been informed.'

A man who claims he called the police after spotting Kaddour-Cherif said he was 'glad he is in prison'.

Algerian Nadjib Mekdhia, 50, who is homeless but stays around the Finsbury Park area, said he recognised Kaddour-Cherif from a newspaper photograph.

He said: 'I am glad he is in prison. We do not need people like that in our community.

'I am proud Algerian. I am proud British. We do the right thing.'

He said he was walking past a cafe on Blackstock Road this morning when he saw Kaddour-Cherif.

He said 'straight away I called 999, I gave the location' and said 'this is him'.

He added: 'I was by the Alerian cafe. The individual approached to me. I don't know what he was doing. I recognised him. I asked a member of the public to give me a phone. Straight away I called the police. The police vans came quickly. '

He said Kaddour-Cherif was just 'hanging around' at the time.

It is understood that Kaddour-Cherif is not an asylum seeker, but is in the process of being deported after he overstayed his visa. 

He was accidentally let out five days after the wrongful release of Epping migrant hotel sex attacker Hadush Kebatu.

Stronger security checks were announced for prisons and an independent investigation was launched into releases in error after Kebatu was accidentally freed on October 24, prompting a three-day manhunt.

The Ethiopian national had been jailed for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl and a woman, but was freed by mistake instead of being sent to an immigration detention centre. He was later traced and deported.

It comes amid a huge political row over David Lammy's handling of Kaddour-Cherif's release. 

The Justice Secretary refused to confirm the criminal had been freed during exchanges at Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday.

He has also been criticised for not returning to Parliament later to give a statement on the detail of what had happened. 

Alex Davies-Jones, a junior minister at the Ministry of Justice, was left to be quizzed about the scandal during a round of TV and radio interviews on Thursday morning.

One Cabinet minister told The Times of Mr Lammy's response to the mistaken prisoner release: 'It's cowardly. He should have fronted up and owned it.

'I still don't understand why he didn't confirm it or make a statement in the Commons. He left it to a junior minister to do the broadcast round. The handling is terrible.'

Another Cabinet minister told the newspaper the row had brought into question Mr Lammy's political 'judgment' and his 'aggressive manner' in the Commons.

A third minister said: 'The PLP [Parliamentary Labour Party] are deeply unhappy. They think the way he has handled this is awful. Why can't he just hold his hands up?'

A senior Government source said: 'It feels less like a contempt [of Parliament] issue, more just rank incompetence and frankly pretty dodgy.'

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said on Thursday that he was 'angry and frustrated' by 'intolerable' wrongful prisoner releases, although he defended Mr Lammy.

The Justice Secretary did appear in front of TV cameras himself on Thursday afternoon to be quizzed about the prisoner release row.

But Mr Lammy raised further questions when he said Kaddour-Cherif was mistakenly released before new checks were implemented.

This is despite him telling MPs last Monday those checks were effective immediately, two days before the wrongful release on October 29.

Whitehall sources later said the Ministry of Justice was investigating evidence that the mistakes that triggered Kaddour-Cherif's release took place in September.

Mr Lammy repeatedly refused to confirm at PMQs on Wednesday, when he was standing in for Sir Keir, whether any more asylum seekers had been wrongly released since Hadush Kebatu, the now-deported migrant at the heart of protests in Epping, Essex. 

He told reporters on Thursday he was 'not equipped with all the detail' about Kaddour-Cherif's release when he appeared in the Commons.

'We have found out that the release that has caused concern, this week, was actually before I introduced those checks just a few weeks ago following the release of Kebatu, and the other prisoner was a court mistake not, in fact, a prison mistake,' Mr Lammy added.

The Justice Secretary had confirmed on October 27 that stronger release checks would come into force immediately, two days before Kaddour-Cherif was released.

The Tories accused him of potentially misleading the public.

Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick said: 'David Lammy has either lied or has absolutely no clue what's going on in his department.

'How can the public have confidence in the Justice Secretary when he can't establish a timeline of events or answer basic questions?'

This morning, Housing Secretary Steve Reed dismissed criticism of Mr Lammy from fellow ministers as 'anonymous tittle tattle'.

He told Times Radio: 'The problem is we've got a broken system, and you are going to see failings when you have a broken system.

'The key is to make sure we have a digital system so that no prisoner is ever released by mistake.

'There is not an acceptable number for this, but the way to fix it is not tittle tattle about David Lammy in the newspapers, it's to get on and do the work and put in the investment that will digitise the system.

'David has already had the prison governors in his office yesterday, I imagine they felt pretty hauled over the coals given what's been going on.

'But he was also making sure that they're getting all the support they need to carry out the much tougher checks that will be required to make sure that the repeats of this are at an absolute minimum.'