THE former Chief Inspector of Prisons has said the release of Hadush Kebatu was “a massive balls up” due to human error.
Speaking to GB News Prof Nick Hardwick said: “I think this was just a terrible individual human error and either they got the paperwork muddled up, so the staff at the gate of the prison got the wrong instructions or alternatively, Chelmsford is a local prison, they let lots of people out every morning, and they got him muddled up with someone else. I think that’s what happened was just a terrible, embarrassing human error.
“This sort of thing happens quite rarely. There has been a spate where, because they keep changing the sentence length and people stay on remand and that gets counted against their sentence, sometimes there are a few cases where people are released a couple of days early or kept in a couple of days too long.
“That does happen. But this wasn’t like that. This guy was going out to the prison at the right time, he just went to the wrong place or was sent to the wrong place. This was not like some of the other mistaken releases. This was just a massive balls up.
“This will be very upsetting and frightening for the victims, and I think they should be our concern. I think they, and everyone else, will be relieved that he was found pretty quickly. There’s no sign he was trying to kind of get away. Indeed, he tried to go back into the prison.
Prof Nick Hardwick GB News.jpg
“It looks to me like he was sleeping rough in a park and was picked up. He’s always said, since he’s convicted, he wants to go back, and now that’s what’s going to happen.
“The point was he was found and is now on his way back. The really important point I was making is, in all of this, you’ve got very frightened alarmed victims. They should be the number one concern, and I think they will be, even if it’s later that you might want.
“They’ll be relieved. He’s behind bars and is now going to be back on a flight to Ethiopia.
“Chelmsford nick was a struggling prison, it wasn’t a good prison and I’ve seen since I left it’s had really bad inspection reports. But people make it too complicated.
“Letting people out of prison on the right day is a relatively straightforward process. It shouldn’t go wrong, and in this case, even a badly run prison should be able to let the right people out. The fact they couldn’t do this is, someone’s got a lot of explaining to do, or more than one person.
“It’s a really embarrassing individual error. But sometimes people make balls ups, and any organisation that has humans in it, sometimes people would do stupid things.”
