In the space of 48 hours, Hadush Kebatu was freed and re-arrested in an error by HMP Chelmsford. The former asylum seeker and now convicted sex offender was accidentally released from the London prison on the morning of the 24th of October while awaiting deportation. By the morning of the 26th of October, police had managed to track the Ethiopian national down in the Finsbury park area, after spending the past two days taking train journeys across the city and approaching members of the public in confusion.
Mr Kebatu was jailed for 12-months in September 2025 before his planned deportation to Ethiopia, for the sexual assault of two women, including a 14-year old girl in Epping. The news caused outrage across the country and led to a summer of anti-immigration protests outside asylum seeker hotels, fuelled by political figures like Reform’s Nigel Farage and Tommy Robinson.
Less than a week later, HMP Wandsworth in London, also mistakenly released an individual on the 29th of October, identified as Brahim Kaddour-Cherif, an Algerian male and registered sex offender. This news however, was not reported to the Metropolitan Police until 6 days later, on Tuesday the 4th of November, with investigations and searches currently underway.
This story only grew on Wednesday the 5th of November, with the news that a second offender, William ‘Billy’ Smith, convicted of multiple fraud offences, had been released from Wandsworth on Monday the 3rd of November. This followed on from a turbulent PMQ’s led by Justice Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister, David Lammy, in which he refused to rule out that any other asylum seeker prisoners had been mistakenly released when asked on numerous occasions. Lammy had been informed about both releases around 15-minutes prior to PMQ’s.
In 2023, former soldier Daniel Khalife escaped from HMP Wandsworth after strapping himself underneath a food delivery truck.
These recent incidents came only days after the minister stated he would ensure stricter checks were taken out to avoid these incidents after Hadush Kebatu. In the period of March 2024 to March 2025, 262 prisoners were accidentally released, doubling from the previous year.
However, this isn’t a stand alone prison failure, but instead, part of an ongoing trend in prisons, policing and the justice system overall. This year alone has seen a number of pressures on the justice system, with factors such as, rising arrests following a summer of protests and disorder, increasing questions around prison safety following violence and a series of accidental releases.
On the 26th of October, it was announced that Scotland’s prison population had reached an all time high after months of steadily rising figures. Overcrowding is one of the leading problems in the UK’s prison system, with the majority operating at 25% above capacity, this has been shown to contribute to a number of factors in failing prisons.
A government press release from June 2025, showed that there was a direct link between overcrowding and increased prison violence, with prisoner on prisoner violence up 11% from 2024. This led to the announcement of “landmark sentencing reforms” and £40 million towards tackling increased violence and the growing issue of contraband & drones. HMP Barlinnie in Scotland saw the highest number of drug smuggling via drones out of all Scottish prisons.
Prison deaths and further failings:
At the beginning of 2025, the Fatal Accident Inquiry (FAI) published its findings in the deaths of two teenagers at Scotland’s Polmont Young Offenders Institute. Both Katie and William died by suicide in 2018, only months apart.
The inquiry found that “measures could have been taken which might reasonably have avoided Katie and Williams’ deaths and found a number of systemic defects that contributed to their deaths.” Following this, Sheriff Collins KC, made a series of recommendations needed to improve the system and avoid a repeat of these circumstances.
As of April 2025, the number of deaths in Scottish prisons were one of the highest in Europe. In 2024 it was found that 64 people had died in jail – according to The Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research. This number has more than doubled in the past decade. In England and Wales, statistics are significantly higher for the period March 2024-25, with a staggering 399 deaths in prison custody, up 37% from the previous year.
HMP Wandsworth in London also came under fire after an inquiry published in 2025 into the suicide of an inmate in 2023, showed that he had been significantly and repeatedly failed by prison staff.
Wandsworth has repeatedly made appearances in headlines throughout 2025 recognised for its poor conditions and was issued an urgent notification during its inspection in 2024. The prison also made a name for itself in the media following the news that a female prison guard had been filmed intimately involved with one of the prison’s inmates before admitting this was not the only occasion, the video quickly went viral and raised questions about corruption within prisons and the safety of other female staff following these actions.
Lack of trust in policing:
Perhaps the most well-known police service of current times in terms of repeated misconduct is the Met Police. It appeared in headlines once again throughout October 2025, following a BBC Panorama investigation into the services “culture of misogyny and racism.” Since its release four officers have been fired for gross misconduct with further misconduct hearings expected to be held.
The organisation is no stranger to misconduct hearings, earlier this year an officer previously cleared of the murder of Chris Kaba was told by Police Watchdog he would face a gross misconduct hearing. In another fatal shooting case, a misconduct hearing into the officer who killed Jermaine Baker in 2015, was dropped in October 2025 after nearly 10 years. In the same month a Met PC was cleared in a misconduct case after being accused of sharing CCTV images in two rape cases.
A 2023 YouGov poll, following the sentencing of former Met officer David Carrick for crimes against women and the 2021 murder of Sarah Everard (killed by a Met Police officer), showed that public trust in the Met Police was at its lowest point since 2017, with 51% of Londoners saying they distrust the organisation.
The picture across the UK isn’t much brighter for police services, with a 2024 YouGov survey showing that 52% of adults had no/not very much confidence in the police to tackle crime locally.
Combating a failing system:
The UK Government’s latest Sentencing Bill outlines the Ministry of Justice’s plan to tackle the current prison crisis. The bill will see “up to 22,000 more offenders and defendants tagged each year as part of the Government’s Plan for Change”, “£100m extra investment and new expectation all prisoners will be tagged when leaving jail” and an end to automatic release for badly behaved offenders. The government also plans to create 14,000 more prison places.
Recent prison reforms in Scotland include the Prisoners (Early Release) (Scotland) Act 2025. The act means “that some short-term prisoners (those serving less than 4 years) are released after serving 40% of their sentence instead of 50%.” and does not apply to prisoners or children serving sentences for domestic abuse, sexual offences, or an offence with a “domestic abuse statutory aggravator.”
The Scottish Government also plans to open a new £1bn prison in Glasgow in an attempt to tackle overcrowding, however recent criticism from Scottish Labour analysis suggests this plan will still not be enough to take on Scotland’s current – and growing, prison population.
It is hoped that reforms such as this in Scotland will help to reduce the nations prison population by approximately 5%. However, with the recent overcrowding statistics we’re yet to see how these amendments play out in coming months/ years.
