Hadush Kebatu has been deported from Britain to his home country of Ethiopia. Photo / Crown Prosecution Service
The migrant sex offender who was mistakenly freed from jail was given £500 ($1140) after threatening to lodge an asylum claim to block his deportation to Ethiopia.
Hadush Kebatu, 41, arrived back in his home country today after being forcibly removed from the United Kingdom on a flight. A team of five immigration security escorts accompanied him.
The Home Office decided to pay him the £500 rather than being forced to cancel the flight and delay his deportation because of his threats to disrupt his removal.
Kebatu, who was jailed for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old, was wrongly released from Chelmsford Prison at the weekend instead of being transferred to a immigration removal centre, leading to a 48-hour police manhunt.
He was caught in a north London park after being seen by a member of the public and taken back into custody in Wormwood Scrubs Prison in west London. He was flown back to Ethiopia with “no right to return”.
The Home Office said it decided to give Kebatu the “discretionary” taxpayer-funded payment of £500 rather than face a “slower and more expensive” process which would have included a new flight, detaining him, and potentially fighting subsequent legal claims.
It is understood that even though Kebatu’s original trial heard it was his “firm wish” to return to Ethiopia, his compliance with immigration officials deteriorated, hours before his scheduled flight.
He threatened to launch a legal challenge against his removal and said he was considering lodging a new asylum claim with the Home Office.
Any claim, however weak, must be considered before any migrant is removed.
There were also concerns that he could disrupt the flight if forcibly removed. It was at this point senior immigration officials decided to pay him.
A source said cancelling the pre-booked flight would have cost at least £8000. They said ministers were not involved in the decision made by the Home Office removals team.
Alex Norris, the Minister for Border Security and Asylum, said he did not know because it was an operational decision but he said a request by Kebatu for a payment of up to £1500 under a Facilitated Return Scheme had been rejected by officials.
“I know that early in the process, he had asked for that and was denied ... We do it sometimes to make a removal easier because it saves the taxpayer money, but I can’t tell in this case,” he said.
Foreign criminals can be paid up to £1500 as a resettlement grant for cooperating with early removal schemes. Kebatu’s £500 payment was discretionary and outside the normal scheme.
David Wood, former director general of immigration enforcement, said: “They shouldn’t have given [the £500] to him - and it did not happen on my watch. If offenders start fighting, biting, spitting on a plane, a lot of captains will throw them off because of the disruption to other passengers.
“In my time, in those cases, we’d get them on a charter plane instead. But we wouldn’t have given them money - it’s not right and would be of no benefit when an enforced removal was being planned.”
Announcing his deportation, Shabana Mahmood, the Home Secretary, said: “Last week’s blunder should never have happened – and I share the public’s anger that it did. I would like to thank the police for rapidly bringing Mr Kebatu into custody and the public for their vigilance.
“I have pulled every lever to deport Mr Kebatu and remove him off British soil. I am pleased to confirm this vile child sex offender has been deported. Our streets are safer because of it.
“If you come to this country and commit crimes, we will remove you.”
David Lammy, the Justice Secretary, said: “I have established an independent investigation chaired by Dame Lynne Owens into [the mistaken jail release] to get the public the answers they rightly deserve, and we have introduced the strictest checks ever seen in our prison system to stop similar unacceptable errors in future.”
Kemi Badenoch, leader of the Conservative Party, said the payment was an outrageous waste of taxpayers’ money.
“Today Keir Starmer wouldn’t rule out raising taxes on hard-working people, while earlier his government handed £500 of your money to a vile foreign sex attacker.
“Hadush Kebatu should have been deported immediately, not released and sent home with pocket money.
“The Conservatives have a serious plan to leave the ECHR and deport all foreign criminals, ensuring that this sort of outrageous waste of taxpayers’ money never happens again.”
Kebatu, an asylum seeker housed at The Bell Hotel in Epping, triggered nationwide protests when he sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl and a woman. He was arrested within a day and sentenced to 12 months in jail.
Because of the prison time he had served on remand in custody before his trial, he became eligible for immediate deportation under new early removal rules for foreign offenders.
It took the Home Office four weeks to negotiate his fast-track removal to Ethiopia and for the country to agree to take him back.
His mistaken release was blamed by ministers on human error. One prison officer was suspended from his jail discharging duties amid demands from his union that he must not be scapegoated.
Charlie Taylor, the Chief Inspector of Prisons, blamed “systemic” problems which had led to the number of releases in error more than doubling in a year from 115 in 2023/24 to 262 in 2024/25.
He said multiple changes to the rules on the early release of prisoners had made the system over-complicated, which had combined with shortages of experienced staff and managers.
It was reported yesterday that four other prisoners had been released by mistake in the past seven days. Mark Fairhurst, chair of the Prison Officers’ Association, said Prison Service leaders knew mistaken releases had been a “regular occurrence” for the last year.
Asked about Kebatu’s accidental release, Fairhurst said: “Somewhere along the line there has been a mistake, from the paperwork being processed in an offender management unit, to the two management checks that were carried out before that release, to the discharge process.
“Somewhere on that paperwork, it’s been missed that we should have held this person in reception until the immigration service picked him up for deportation.”
Lammy has introduced a barrage of mandatory additional checks that duty governors have to personally oversee before an offender can be released or transferred to an immigration deportation centre.
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