Keypoints:
- Offender freed by mistake before deportation
- Paid £500 to prevent flight disruption
- Inquiry ordered into prison release error
A CONVICTED Ethiopian sex offender mistakenly released from a British prison was paid £500 before being deported, the UK government has confirmed. The payment was authorised after the offender, Hadush Kebatu, threatened to disrupt his removal flight.
Mistaken release and rapid deportation
Kebatu, who had been serving a 12-month sentence for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl and a woman at an asylum hotel in Epping, Essex, was supposed to be transferred from HMP Chelmsford to an immigration detention centre last Friday under an early removals scheme for foreign offenders. Instead, prison staff mistakenly set him free — an error Justice Secretary David Lammy called a ‘human error’.
By the time police were alerted, Kebatu had boarded a train to London. He was arrested in north London on Sunday morning after being spotted near Finsbury Park. The Home Office said he was deported to Ethiopia on Tuesday night (October 28) and landed in Addis Ababa the following morning.
£500 payment to prevent flight disruption
Downing Street confirmed that Kebatu was given a £500 payment to prevent him from disrupting his deportation. A spokesman for Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the sum was paid by the removal team as a pragmatic alternative to a slower and more expensive process.
‘The payment avoided a slower, more expensive process for the taxpayer, which would have included detention, a new flight and potential legal claims,’ the spokesman said.
Although paid removals are normally made under the Facilitated Returns Scheme, which offers £1,500 to offenders who agree to leave voluntarily, Kebatu’s application was rejected. Officials opted instead for a forced deportation, with five escorts accompanying him on the flight.
Political backlash over payout
The payment provoked widespread political anger. The main opposition Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch condemned it as ‘an outrageous waste of taxpayers’ money’, saying Kebatu ‘should have been deported immediately, not released and sent home with pocket money’.
Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Max Wilkinson said public confidence had been ‘completely trashed’. ‘We need to fix our fundamentally broken immigration system,’ he added.
The right-wing opposition party Reform UK head of policy Zia Yusuf described the incident as ‘an insult of the highest order’, accusing the government of ‘failing to keep its people safe and wasting taxpayer money’.
Government orders independent inquiry
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said she shared public anger over the case. ‘I have pulled every lever to deport Mr Kebatu and remove him off British soil. Our streets are safer because of it,’ she told the BBC.
An independent inquiry has been launched, led by former Metropolitan Police deputy commissioner Dame Lynne Owens, to examine how Kebatu was mistakenly released and whether staff had the proper training and tools. Immediate safeguards have been introduced to tighten release checks in prisons. A prison officer has been suspended, and deportations from HMP Chelmsford are on hold pending the review.
Community reaction and aftermath
Epping Forest MP Neil Hudson said his constituents were ‘relieved’ by Kebatu’s deportation. ‘No one wants our hometown leading the news for such reasons,’ he told BBC Radio 4.
Kebatu arrived in the UK by small boat in June 2024 after travelling through Sudan, Libya, Italy and France. During his trial, he said it was his ‘firm wish’ to return to Ethiopia. He was briefly detained upon arrival in Addis Ababa but later released because there was ‘no legal basis for his continued detention’, Ethiopian Federal Police spokesman Jaylan Abde told the BBC.
The case has reignited debate over the UK’s deportation system, the handling of foreign offenders, and government accountability following a string of recent administrative blunders.
