The father of the schoolgirl who was sexually assaulted by an Ethopian migrant who was mistakenly freed from prison has called for him to be ‘deported immediately’.
Hadush Kebatu was set loose from HMP Chelmsford on Friday in a humiliating blunder which saw a nationwide manhunt sparked before he was finally arrested in Finsbury Park, north London, at around 8.30am today.
The 38-year-old, who was was sentenced for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl and a woman while being housed at an asylum seeker hotel, was awaiting transfer to an immigration detention centre ahead of his planned deportation, but bungling prison staff freed him instead.
Justice Secretary David Lammy today visited Wood Green Police Station to thank the officers for detaining Kebatu and confirmed the migrant would be ‘deported this week’, branding the blunder as ‘totally unacceptable’.
But the father of Kebatu’s teenage victim has said he feels ‘massively let down and infuriated’ by the sex attacker’s release on the streets, as he led calls for him to be deported immediately.
In a statement read out by Epping Forest councillor Shane Yerrell, the father said Kebatu’s release caused his daughter ‘so much stress and anxiety’ and that it was ‘unbelievably irresponsible’.
He said: ‘Myself and my family feel massively let down and infuriated by HMP Chelmsford, the police, the justice system and our Labour government. They have all failed. Not just us as a family, but they have failed everyone in the country.’
The father said he only found out what had happened after being contacted by a reporter and was ‘sent images and videos of [Kebatu] walking around throughout the day before the police even alerted her mother’.
This is the moment Hadush Kebatu (second from left) was arrested by Met Police officers in Finsbury Park, north London on Sunday. He was seen wearing a dark puffer jacket with a black and grey hoodie, jeans and grey trainers
Video footage (above) appeared to capture Kebatu in Chelmsford town centre asking for directions from locals on Friday, while wearing his prison tracksuit
The father then went to HMP Chelmsford to find out what was going on, but says he was ‘greeted with hostility and complete disregard for anything I said or asked’ at the prison.
He continued: ‘This man is a real danger to young women and children and for him to be wrongly released and walking the streets freely just four months after carrying out two sexual assaults, only five weeks after being sentenced, all because of a system failure on Friday is unbelievably irresponsible.’
The father said he hopes ‘nobody else’s child has to experience what my daughter has’ and called on officials to deport Kebatu ‘immediately’.
He added: ‘The longer he was roaming the streets, the more threat he posed to women and children of this country.’
When pressed by reporters on why Kebatu could not be deported on tonight’s flight from London Heathrow to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, Mr Lammy said: ‘It is right that he is questioned by the police following his route from Essex into London.
‘It’s right that we get to the bottom of what’s happened over those 48 hours, but I can assure you that he will be deported as he was expected to be deported. I expect that to happen this week.’
Mr Lammy then appeared to pin the blame on the Tories while being quizzed on why 262 prisoners were released in error between March 2024 and 2025 – a 128 per cent rise from 115 the year before.
He said: ‘You will know that we inherited a system that was collapsing, in which the previous government was releasing people early without any scrutiny at all, in which officers were cut and there are a lot of junior officers in the prison system.
‘All of that needs a close look at to ensure the public are safe – and certainly that foreign nationals that commit offences and should not be in the country are absolutely deported back to where they are from.’
The Justice Secretary said he recognises that it will have been an ‘anxious time’ for Kebatu’s victims and their families, and that he will announce a ‘full independent inquiry’ into what has happened in Parliament on Monday.
After Kebatu was released, the convicted sex offender is understood to have returned to prison but was repeatedly turned away by guards who instead directed him to Chelmsford train station.
Kebatu was filmed in Chelmsford town centre speaking to members of the public before boarding a 12.41pm train to Stratford, east London. He was wearing his prison-issue grey tracksuit and a clear bag filled with his belongings.
Justice Secretary David Lammy today visited Wood Green Police Station to ‘thank the officers’ for detaining Kebatu in his constituency area and confirmed the migrant would be ‘deported this week’
By Friday evening, Kebatu had made it to the Dalston area of Hackney, where he was spotted wearing the same prison tracksuit while clutching a white tote bag with avocados on it. He was seen walking up a staircase at a library in Dalston Square at around 6pm and was spotted again two hours later.
His movements on Saturday are unclear but the Met Police confirmed today that he was finally caught in Finsbury Park three days after being mistakenly freed.
In a picture of his arrest, Kebatu was seen wearing a dark puffer jacket with a black and grey hoodie, jeans and grey trainers. It is not clear when Kebatu changed his outfit but he was reportedly handed a £76 discharge grant when he was freed.
The Met confirmed a member of the public saw someone matching Kebatu’s appearance at a bus stop near Finsbury Park Station at 8.03am. The force deployed officers and found Kebatu inside the park, close to the entrance opposite Finsbury Park Road, at 8.19am.
He was then arrested for being unlawfully at large.
One witness who saw Kebatu being led out of Finsbury Park said the mistakenly-released prisoner was walking ‘calmly’ and ‘wasn’t trying to get away’.
Jack Neill-Hall said: ‘I was there to walk my dog and as I entered the park I saw a group of five people – two uniformed officers, someone who looked more like they were a plain-clothes officer, and a fourth person who I don’t know what their role was – and a man who looked awfully like the Epping asylum seeker guy who’d been on all the newspapers over the weekend.
‘I knew that he’d last been seen in the Hackney area and I thought “oh, that looks awfully like that guy, he’s not wearing the same clothes but it looks like him”.
‘I didn’t see him being arrested but I saw they were walking with the two female officers with their hands on him, two further officers who were talking into a radio walking down… towards the exit.
‘I didn’t see any police vehicles or sirens or cars or anything like that.’
The 40-year-old, who lives in the Finsbury Park area, continued: ‘He wasn’t struggling, he was walking quite calmly, a bit dejectedly, he was staring down, he had his hood up, but it was a calm situation.
‘It was a leisurely stroll out of the park with him with his hands cuffed but he wasn’t trying to get away.’
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said today: ‘Hadush Kebatu has been arrested and will be deported. Officers have worked quickly and diligently to bring him back into custody. We have ordered an investigation to establish what went wrong. We must make sure this doesn’t happen again.’
Mr Lammy has ordered the ‘immediate strengthening of release checks and a full investigation into what went wrong’.
Confirmation of the arrest came shortly after Wes Streeting had begged for the public’s help in finding the wrongly released sex attacker.
Speaking on Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips, the health secretary said the government had been ‘turning over every stone’ to find Kebatu.
‘He [Kebatu] was last spotted in east London and so I would appeal to people watching to look at the images of this man to make sure that we’re all vigilant and if he’s sighted to dial 999 immediately. We want him found, arrested and deported.’
He added: ‘This man was behind bars because of serious sex offences. He is not meant to be in this country. In fact, what what was supposed to be happening is he was meant to be transferred for deportation.
‘So, the idea that he’s loose on our streets is incredibly serious. It is a serious failure.’
The cabinet minister admitted that the mistaken release shows something has gone ‘spectacularly wrong’.
He added: ‘I feel as angry as people watching this morning. You cannot fathom how on earth this has happened. We don’t want to prejudge the investigation. We will get to the bottom of exactly what’s gone wrong.
‘Every single day, there are millions of people working across the public sector doing a great job. And when something like this goes spectacularly wrong, we need to work out how.’
Chelmsford’s Liberal Democrat MP Marie Goldman called for a ‘rapid’ national inquiry into the blunder that saw Kebatu walk free.
‘It’s unacceptable that the safety of my constituents, and the people of London, was ever put at risk,’ she said. ‘The prison service had several chances to fix it and failed.
‘The Government has serious questions to answer and major work to do to make the system fit for purpose. It certainly isn’t at the moment. A rapid, national inquiry must happen to get to the bottom of this.’
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said he remains ‘shocked that this inept Labour Government let him out in the first place’.
The Conservative MP for Croydon South told GB News: ‘They should never have allowed his release and I think David Lammy and Shabana Mahmood have questions to answer because they have presided over this system.
‘What should happen now to this man is that he should be immediately deported. He is quite clearly a risk to women and girls.’
Zia Yusuf, head of policy for Reform UK, said he was ‘relieved’ Kebatu was apprehended, telling Sky News: ‘This is a man who eyewitnesses said was actively trying to go back into prison after being accidentally let go.
‘So, look, glad he’s been apprehended but I mean it’s absolutely shocking and how any victim of sexual assault could look at this Labour Government and Jess Phillips in particular, and the whole state apparatus right now, and have any degree of confidence is beyond me.’
Kebatu was arrested by Met officers in the Finsbury Park area of London at around 8.30am this morning
Footage shows Kebatu being bundled into the back of a police van after being arrested in Finsbury Park
As the hunt descended deeper into farce, Wes Streeting had begged for the public’s help in finding the wrongly released sex attacker
A prison officer has been taken off duties to discharge prisoners while an investigation takes place.
It comes after it emerged that prison officers told Kebatu he had to make it to the removal centre on his own steam.
A delivery driver told Sky News: ‘I heard one of the officers saying, ‘This is how you get to the station, you go down here…’ [he] directed him to the station and said he had to get on a train to get to this place… This conversation was at the front of the prison.’
In what caused further disbelief, Kebatu spent more than 90 minutes hanging around outside the prison because he simply did not know ‘where to go or what to do’.
The driver, who was delivering equipment to the prison, said: ‘[The officers] were basically sending him away, saying, ‘Go, you’ve been released, you go.”
The debacle has left Labour facing fresh questions about its handling of the migrant crisis.
It comes amid a backlash against efforts to tackle illegal migration after a man who was deported under the ‘one in, one out’ scheme with France reappeared on UK shores having crossed the Channel again in a small boat.
Tory MP for Epping Forest, Neil Hudson, called Kebatu’s release a ‘catastrophic mistake’ which had ‘deeply distressed, upset and angered’ the whole community, adding that ‘accountability must go right to the top’.
Even after being set free, Kebatu kept going ‘back and forth’ into the prison reception area seeking help and showing staff a wad of paperwork about his case, according to the driver.
‘I’m not sticking up for the guy but in my eyes he wanted to do the right thing and go to the right place,’ he said.
‘He knew he was getting deported but he didn’t know where to go or how he should get there. He kept scratching his head and saying, “Where do I go, where do I go?”‘
He added that the officers had no interest in helping him, saying, ‘You’re released, you’re released.’
Kebatu had been spotted walking through Chelmsford, Essex, after his accidental release from prison
Kebatu was jailed for a year last month after assaulting his 14-year-old victim. During his trial, Chelmsford Magistrates’ Court heard that he acted ‘ignorantly and repulsively’.
The migrant became aroused as he put his hand on the girl’s thighs and stroked her hair despite knowing ‘full well she was only 14’. He said he wanted to have a baby with her and invited her back to The Bell Hotel, where he was living.
Kebatu then tried to kiss a woman who attempted to intervene, before putting his hand on her leg and telling her she was pretty.
The asylum seeker gave his age as 38 during a court appearance but a judge said he had seen information indicating he was 41.
Met Police Commander James Conway urged Kebatu to give himself up, saying: ‘We want to locate you in a safe and controlled way. You had already indicated a desire to return to Ethiopia when speaking to immigration staff. The best outcome for you is to make contact directly with us.’
He said the asylum seeker had taken ‘a number of journeys’ across London since his release on Friday and had ‘access to funds’.
