LONDON — A 24-year-old Algerian national who was mistakenly released from prison on Oct. 29 was arrested in London, police said on Friday. Brahim Kaddour Cherif, a convicted sex offender, was arrested by officers more than a week after being released from Wandsworth prison, police said in a statement.
"Cherif was spotted by a member of the public in Blackstock Road, Islington just before 11.30am. Officers responded immediately and he was arrested," the Metropolitan Police said on US social media company X. The dramatic arrest, captured on video by a Sky News crew, showed Cherif initially denying his identity, telling an officer, "I'm not Brahim, bro," before admitting, "It is not my fault. They released me illegally." He was also arrested on suspicion of assaulting an emergency worker in a previous incident.
Cherif, who uses variations of his first name including Ibrahim, had been serving a sentence for trespass with intent to steal at HMP Wandsworth, a Category B men's prison in southwest London. He is a registered sex offender following a November 2024 conviction for indecent exposure related to an incident in March of that year, for which he received a community order and was placed on the sex offenders register for five years. Additionally, he was jailed in June 2025 for possessing a knife. Originally entering the UK on a visitor visa in 2019, Cherif overstayed and was in the early stages of deportation proceedings when the clerical error occurred. Authorities have confirmed he is not an asylum seeker.
The tip-off came from Nadjib Mekdhia, a 50-year-old homeless Algerian man staying in the Finsbury Park area, who recognized Cherif from newspaper photos and called police immediately. "Everyone knows him, he's in the news," Mekdhia told reporters, expressing relief at the arrest: "I'm glad he is in prison." The location was just a three-minute walk from where another mistakenly released sex offender, Hadush Kebatu, was recaptured on Oct. 26.
Another inmate, William Smith, 35, handed himself in on Thursday, three days after being mistakenly freed from the same prison. Known as Billy, Smith was sentenced to 45 months for multiple fraud offenses at Croydon Crown Court on Nov. 3, but a clerical error led prison staff to believe it was a suspended sentence. He arrived at HMP Wandsworth around 10:30 a.m., dropped off by a flatbed truck, hugging a crying woman believed to be his partner before waving and smiling for cameras as he entered. "I'm the prisoner they're looking for. I'm about to hand myself in," he told staff. Surrey Police confirmed his return to custody, ending a three-day manhunt.
"We inherited a prison system in crisis and I'm appalled at the rate of releases in error this is causing," said Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy. Lammy, who also serves as Justice Secretary, confirmed Cherif's recapture in a statement: "Brahim Kaddour-Cherif has been recaptured and is back in custody." He described the errors as "unacceptable" and announced immediate measures, including deploying engineers, analysts, and designers to prisons within 48 hours to introduce digital tools and reduce human error in the "paper-based" processes. Lammy has ordered an independent inquiry led by Dame Lynne Owens, former deputy Metropolitan Police commissioner, to review the failures. During a bruising session at Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday, Lammy faced accusations of evasiveness when pressed on additional releases, responding heatedly: "Get a grip, man." The Ministry of Justice later clarified he had not been "accurately informed of key details" beforehand.
Alex Davies-Jones, a justice minister, said prisons "won't be fixed overnight," and that the system is in "crisis." Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, she expressed fury over the average of 22 wrongful monthly releases, blaming "14 years of Tory austerity" that left prisons reliant on "reams and reams of paperwork" and understaffed. Davies-Jones announced a "crack team" of digital experts to overhaul the archaic system and convened an urgent meeting of prison governors on Thursday to address ground-level issues. She emphasized that chronic underfunding and failure to build sufficient prison places exacerbated the overcrowding, with staff-to-inmate ratios worsening from 1.9 in 2010 to 2.4 today.
Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick labelled the situation an "utter shambles" as pressure on the government is mounting over recent mistaken releases. Jenrick accused Lammy of a "total dereliction of duty" for dodging questions in Parliament and claimed the errors stem from Labour's "disastrously executed" early release scheme to combat overcrowding. "This is a full-blown crisis," he said, demanding transparency on the 262 erroneous releases in the year to March 2025—more than double the 115 from the prior year—and how many of the four still at large remain unaccounted for. Jenrick, while admitting the Conservative record was "poor," argued his party had prioritized keeping offenders incarcerated despite pressures. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage echoed the criticism on social media, calling it "another dangerous criminal on the loose thanks to Labour."
These incidents follow the high-profile mistaken release of Hadush Kebatu, an Ethiopian asylum seeker convicted of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl and a woman shortly after arriving in the UK by small boat. Kebatu's Oct. 24 release from HMP Chelmsford sparked protests outside an Epping asylum hotel and prompted Lammy's initial "toughest ever" discharge checks, including five pages of new protocols for governors. Yet, the errors persisted, with at least five additional mistaken releases reported in the week after Kebatu's case, including one still at large.
The broader crisis traces back years. Official figures show erroneous releases rising steadily: 54 in 2022, 71 in 2023, 87 in 2024, and a record 262 in the 12 months to March 2025—a 128% jump attributed partly to adjustments from the 2024 emergency early release scheme, which freed 37 inmates in error due to mislogged offenses under repealed laws. HMP Wandsworth, built in the 19th century, has been in special measures since 2024 after an inspection deemed it "severely overcrowded" with guards often unaware of prisoners' locations. A 2022 escape by Daniel Abed Khalife, who hid under a food delivery truck, highlighted ongoing security lapses despite £900,000 in investments.
Prison Officers’ Association National Chair Mark Fairhurst warned of "catastrophe," citing outdated admin systems and mounting staff pressures. The prison population has doubled in 30 years to record levels, with officer numbers down 3% since 2023 to 22,980. Labour's reforms include community punishments to ease capacity and a sentencing review, but critics like Liberal Democrat MP Will Forster argue reliance on inmates "handing themselves back" is untenable.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer called the releases "intolerable," blaming Tory "burden and strain" but vowing forensic examination. As Cherif faces trial for at least four further offenses before likely deportation, the public remains on edge. Victims' advocates, including Labour MP Rosena Allin-Khan, whose constituency includes Wandsworth, expressed horror, demanding better safeguards. With four erroneous releases from the past year still unresolved, the overhaul cannot come soon enough—ensuring one mistake truly is one too many.
