London — A convicted sex offender who was mistakenly released early from a London prison was re-arrested Friday after more than a week of freedom, police said.
Brahim Kaddour-Cherif was one of two men set free in accidental releases from Wandsworth Prison over the past two weeks that have caused a political headache for the government and focused renewed attention on an overcrowded and overwhelmed prison system.
The other inmate, Billy Smith, 35, who was sentenced to nearly four years for fraud and accidentally released on the same day as Cherif, turned himself in at the Victorian-era lockup on Thursday.
Cherif, 24, a registered sex offender due to a previous indecent exposure conviction, was serving time for trespass with intent to steal. The Algerian national who overstayed a legal visit to the U.K. in 2019 was in the initial stages of deportation when he was allowed to walk off the prison ground on Monday.
Mistakenly released sex offender Brahim Kaddour-Cherif is shown in this undated photo.
Metropolitan Police
He was stopped by police in north London in an arrest filmed by national broadcaster Sky News. He initially denied he was the man they were looking for, but then said he wasn't to blame for being on the streets.
"I'm not Brahim, bro," he initially told a police officer, who said he recognized his distinctive nose. "Everyone know him, he's in (the) news," Cherif said.
After police officers pulled out their phones to look at the photo of the wanted man, he effectively admitted he was Cherif.
"It is not my fault," Cherif said. "They released me illegally."
Both men were wrongly freed from Wandsworth, which was built in southwest London in the middle of the 19th century, and was already under scrutiny after another prisoner escaped two years ago by clinging to the underside of a food delivery truck.
A police van departs Wandsworth Prison, Nov. 5, 2025, in London, England.
Ben Montgomery/Getty/Ben Montgomery Photography
The inadvertent releases followed more stringent security checks that were supposed to be in place after an asylum-seeker who inspired a rise of anti-immigrant protests was mistakenly freed from Chelmsford Prison, east of London, on Oct. 24.
Prison chiefs were summoned to a meeting Thursday to discuss the errors and said efforts were being made to update a system that still uses paper prison records.
The mistaken releases have become a source of heated debate and a political liability for the Labour government after being a thorn in the side of their Conservative predecessors.
According to government figures, 262 prisoners were released in error in the year ending March 2025, a 128% increase on the previous 12-month period.
Conservatives say the Labour government is to blame for a policy to release some inmates earlier to ensure prisons don't exceed capacity.
But Labour has blamed 14 years of Conservative rule and years of austerity that has starved the Prison Service of resources.
"We inherited a prison system in crisis and I'm appalled at the rate of releases in error this is causing," Justice Secretary David Lammy said after the arrest. "I'm determined to grip this problem, but there is a mountain to climb which cannot be done overnight."
An official review of the issue has begun, but Ian Acheson, a former prison governor and adviser to U.K. government ministers, cited the overcrowding of Britain's prisons as a reason for the rise in accidental releases.
Overcrowding has brought more pressure on the prison managers to get offenders out as quickly as possible, which has led to more movement of prisoners within the prison system, Acheson told the Telegraph newspaper.
"It is quite possible that one of the reasons for the increase in these mistakes has been the push and imperative to get people out," Acheson told the Telegraph.
Haley Ott contributed to this report.
English (US) · 