British police said on 5 November, 2025, they had launched a manhunt for two prisoners, including an Algerian, mistakenly released from Wandsworth jail, angering parliamentarians at the latest mix-up committed by the UK's beleaguered prison system. Photo: NIKLAS HALLE'N / AFP
A prisoner who was one of two mistakenly released from jail in the latest mix-up by the under-pressure UK prison system has handed himself in to authorities, police said.
Police launched a manhunt on Wednesday (local time) after it emerged that Billy Smith, 35, and another prisoner, Brahim Kaddour Cherif, a 24-year-old Algerian, had been freed in error.
Smith surrendered to Wandsworth Prison in London on Thursday, three days after it wrongly freed him, Surrey Police, south of London, said.
Alex Davies-Jones, a junior minister in the justice ministry, said prison chiefs had been summoned for a meeting following a catalogue of errors by jail authorities.
Police were still searching for Cherif, who was released from the same prison on 29 October and remains at large.
The cases are an embarrassment to Prime Minister Keir Starmer's struggling centre-left Labour government, which polls indicate is currently deeply unpopular with the British public.
Just last month, Hadush Kebatu, an Ethiopian asylum seeker convicted of sexually assaulting a teenage girl and a woman, was mistakenly released from prison before being recaptured following a 48-hour manhunt.
The UK government then forcibly deported Kebatu, giving him £500 (NZ$1164) to leave the country, and launched an independent investigation into his accidental release.
Figures showed 262 people were mistakenly freed from prison between March 2024 and March 2025, up from 115 in the 21 months previously.
Kebatu's arrest earlier this year in Epping, northeast of London, triggered weeks of demonstrations targeting hotels where asylum seekers were believed to be housed.
Starmer, prime minister since July 2024, is coming under fire on multiple fronts over immigration as the hard-right Reform UK party led by firebrand Nigel Farage surges in popularity.
- AFP