An Algerian sex offender who was wrongly released from prison has been arrested by the police.
Brahim Kaddour-Cherif, 24, was arrested after being spotted by a member of the public in FinSbury Park, London just before 11:30 GMT on Friday.
He left HMP Wandsworth in South London on 29 October. Police said they were not told about the mistake until Tuesday 4 November.
Kaddour-Cherif was one of two men who were separately wrongfully released from prison in the same week. Both are now back in custody, after William Smith turned himself in on Thursday.
The ALGERIAN National was convicted of indecent exposure in November 2024, related to an incident in March of that year.
He was given an 18-month community order and placed on the sex offenders’ register for five years.
The Metropolitan police said he was found by a member of the public near the capital’s City College on Blackstock Road at 11:23.
The officers responded “immediately” and arrested him at 11:30, added force.
He was arrested for being out of place and not against a person and on suspicion of assaulting an emergency worker related to a previous incident.
After he was placed in handcuffs, officers searched his backpack and found a laptop, umbrella and wallet.
Before he was put in the back of a police van, he turned to the crowd and said:
Algerian Nadjib Mekdhia, 50, who is homeless but lives in FinSbury Park, said he was walking to a cafe on Blackstour Road.
“I was at the Algerian Cafe. The individual approached me. I don’t know what he was doing. I recognized him. I asked a member of the public to give me a phone.
“I immediately called the police. The police officers came quickly.”
He added: “I’m glad he’s in prison. We don’t need people like us in the community.
“I’m proud to be Algerian. I’m proud to be British. We’re doing the right thing.”
Deelo Morgenegg, who witnessed the arrest, told the BBC that he saw a “change” between Kaddour and someone who may have known that the prisoner had been released by mistake.
Then the police came and questioned him, he said, “adding:” Things started to waste on him and then finally they tied him up “.
When Kaddour-Cherif was placed in the Police Van “He started kicking the van and kind of shaking it and throwing stones”, said Mr. Morgenegg.
Kaddour-Cherif is understood to have entered the UK legally on a visitor’s visa in 2019, but is at extra stages in the deportation process.
He was released the day after being found not guilty of breaching sex registry requirements – but he still faces other charges and must remain in custody.
Representatives of prison officials said a clerical error meant there was no warrant from the court to hold him, and he was released.
It was followed a series of prosecutions and court appearances Sea two years.
William Smith, the second man released from HMP Wandister in the past week, handed himself in on Thursday. He was released on Monday having been sentenced to prison earlier that day.
Their releases come just weeks after sex migrant Hasush Kebatu, who arrived in the UK on a small boat, was mistakenly released from HMP Chelmsford in Essex in late October.
Sources told the BBC that the prison governor was not in prison on the day Kaddour-Cherif was released because he was released asking how Kebatu was doing.
The inmate was caught just a minute’s walk from the where Kebatu was arrested again.
In a statement after the arrest on Friday, Justice Secretary David Lammy said: “We have inherited a prison system in crisis and I am appalled at the rate of wrongful releases this has caused.
“I am determined to fix this problem, but there is a mountain that will appear that cannot be done overnight.
“That’s why I ordered new tough release checks, ordering an independent investigation into the systemic failures used in some prisons.”
Conservative MP Kemi Badenoch said Lammy “doesn’t know what he’s doing”.
Reacting to the footage of Kaddour-Cerif’s arrest, he added: “These people have made a mockery of our justice system. It is clear that the UK is a soft touch and the government must take action.
“I thought it was also strange that he was just going around the Secretary of justice’s own constitution. They are laughing at us and what the government should do is that it reflects our laws.”
Lammy was brought down by fire On the wrong releases, after he promised the “strongest checks” to prevent similar mistakes following the case of Kebatu.
The new checks have more responsibility for the duty of duty, which oversees the security of the prison. They have to monitor the release of all prisoners – complete many checks and calculations, as well as fill out additional paperwork.
But these checks are proving a “significant burden”, according to a senior prison staff member, who says they “just increase the paperwork”.
“Now it takes a day in some cases to complete the checks to release someone and it doesn’t help when staffing is an issue,” they said.
Prisons have been in a state of crisis for years. The wolf population continues, with the number of staff not keeping up with the number of inmates.
Only a hundred or so places were available in the men’s prison last summer. This is the reason for the government’s emergency release system – where some inmates are released after serving 40% of their sentence, instead of the usual 50%. It was implemented to reduce overcrowding and nearly 40,000 inmates were released under the scheme.
But this also has repercussions on the number of wrong releases.
Some 262 prisoners in England and Wales were wrongly released in the year to March 2025, according to the latest figures – up from 115 last year.
The government has promised to build more prisons to ease the burden, with developments showing the prison population will continue to grow. But it takes time and is not an instant solution.
Additional Reporting by Theo Ganti and Alex Forter