It’s now over six weeks since Hadush Kebatu’s ‘release in error’ sparked a two day manhunt, and highlighted our prison system’s disastrous habit of regularly releasing inmates who should remain in jail. Since then we’ve heard about the accidental releases of Kaddour-Cherif, a prolific criminal from Algeria who overstayed a visa six years ago, and Billy Smith, released on the day he received a 45 month prison sentence. The government has promised to get a grip, but today we learned that another 12 prisoners have been released in error in the past three weeks, and that two of them are still at large.

It’s clear from these answers that the Justice Secretary has bought the excuses provided by senior civil servants – excuses which make no sense at all

We didn’t learn this via an official announcement or an answer to a parliamentary question. Instead David Lammy appeared to let the information slip on Sky News this morning, admitting that two offenders were currently at large, before providing more detail on a later BBC interview, where he stated there have been a dozen accidental releases in the past three weeks. Lammy went on to blame a ‘paper-based system’ and ‘human error’, but insisted that accidental releases are........

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